After my military discharge I became involved in efforts to stop the Vietnam War. I also started to hear negative stuff about Israeli treatment of Palestinians, which of course I was in denial about. The Arabs were the bad guys after all. Nonetheless, I began to do some research and soon saw that there might actually be something to the criticism. Eventually I went to the West Bank with a team of US veterans along with a former IDF paratrooper to experience the reality for myself. Four of us on that team were Jewish. I made two trips a few years apart. What I saw and experienced directly confirmed much of what I had researched, and it wasn’t pretty.
I’ll cut to the chase. The Zionist State of Israel has betrayed the very essence of everything good and decent about being Jewish. Instead of being kind, compassionate and empathetic to the oppressed and dedicated to truth, Israel has become a most vicious oppressor. I saw Palestine children brutalized. They are killed on almost a daily basis. Children! Many are languishing in Israel prisons for throwing rocks at occupying soldiers or for just being suspected of that. Israeli soldiers often break into Palestinian houses in the dead of night, terrorize the family and arrest children. And there is no such thing as a fair trial. If you are arrested, you are guilty. Palestinians are considered vermin.
August, 2015: Nabi Salah, West Bank: Palestinian child being terrrorized by an Israeli soldier
And the armed settlers with their hatred and biblical stupidity—“God gave us this land”—are the worst. Yes, their god is a real-estate agent in the sky. Idiocy. And there is no excuse for it—none. Just as there was no excuse for what the Nazis did and what they became—arrogant monsters. How ironic that I saw such a similar phenomenon in Israel, especially in my direct confrontations with the IDF and the rabid settlers. Now I understand my mother’s revulsion to everything German. I’m a Jew and I wanted to see the truth, to actually see the reality apart from the mythology and the hasbara. The reality is that Israel has become an anathema to the humanistic tradition of Judaism. Instead it is sadistically violent and ruthless, as were the Nazis, but it is the arrogance most of all that repulses me.
The author speaks with an Israeli soldier in the West Bank Village of al-Masra. Photo: Ellen Davidson
Finally, I suggest that people who want to defend Israel first spend some time in the West Bank as an objective observer. As many have, you will then see the truth. It may shock and disturb you, but you will become a better, more honest person because of it.
Tarak Kauff is the editor-in-chief of Peace and Planet News. He was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962 and is a lifetime member and former board member of Veterans For Peace. He is a longtime activist for peace, justice, and the environment.