Jonathan Kestenbaum: Diary of Israeli Occupation
Jonathan Kestenbaum: Diary of Israeli Occupation
'A Soldier's Diary' is a moving and humbling insight into the experience of a young British man, Jonathan Kestenbaum, who found himself witness to the tragedy of occupation whilst serving in the Israel Defense Forces in 1998. The diaries changed the culture of protest in Israel for ever. Jonathan Kestenbaum became an inspiration to the peace movement. The diaries are reprinted below.
A Soldier's Diary; Jonathan Kestenbaum
August 8:
This diary, born out of a roadblock, after turning away two journalists.
There was a tremendous callousness all around to the sensitivities of what we were about to face. The worst hostility was reserved for the IDF spokesman's representative. I almost sensed the waves of hatred as he tried to emphasize the importance of the press in the territories.
One sign of things to come amidst the jokes and nervous laughter there were signs of genuine excitement by some soldiers at the prospect of "teaching them not to raise their heads."
August 11:
Kabatiya. The town where the "collaborator" was lynched (a local Palestinian was murdered by his neighbours on grounds of collaboration Ed). The eyes of the territories are on this place, we are told, so be aggressive, purposeful, and don't let them "take you for a ride".
Kabatiya is a town under curfew, but it's more like a siege. We patrol all day, making sure nobody comes out of his house.
It's amazing to see how quickly people's personalities dictate their actions. "We can only speak to them in a language they understand." "They're all liars." The lack of consensus is quite amazing, and people's views and behaviour cut across socio-political lines.
There are two separate issues here. Policy is not our business. What is our business is how you carry out that policy: with sensitivity, respect, understanding and reasonableness, or with enthusiasm, sadism, glee, etc
August 12:
The first day, and we move into the school in the middle of town to "administer" things. Desks, textbooks, school materials all are discarded, dumped in a big pile, as the school seethes with sweating bodies.
Day one of patrols.
Sweltering streets piled with rubbish. A ghost town with frightened faces peering out of windows. The battalion commander tells us that they remain under curfew until they are "broken," whatever that means. Hour after hour of numbing patrols.
There's a tremendous tendency to blame the Arabs for your being here, and I sense a hardening of the senses. The roughness of the commands as we scream maniacally at women to shut their curtains. Bear in mind, 11,000 residents, an average of ten people to a family, confined to boiling, cramped living quarters twenty-four hours a day. The experience is one that must be told to the world. This can't carry on.
Kabatiya produces fights among us as well. I've been branded as soft-hearted, and have been quite ignored by a fair chunk of the unit. Remarkable moments as soldiers can't understand when I say that you can't do that. You can't arrest ten-year-olds for picking tomatoes after curfew (their own tomatoes), and then laughingly take them yourself.
August 13:
The biggest disillusion for me are the officers. I think they actually enjoy it: the power, the control, and, above all, the humiliation.
The humiliation goes on all the time, as the school has become a sort of "military detention centre." Anyone caught outside during the day is ordered to the school where he is left unceremoniously in the boiling sun. Humiliation of old men who are trying to sneak into the fields at night to save two kilos of rotting peppers, caught by my officers and sent to Jenin for "correction."
One reservist, a kibbutznik, carries out his duty as chief prison officer with great joy, and without an ounce of mercy. His philosophy is simple. "They're all liars," he tells me when I say that collective punishment is a totally blunt instrument. "So when they say they're breaking curfew because their child is ill, they're actually scheming".
August 17:
We are being placed in all sorts of situations which I find quite unbearable. It's just wrong. Collective punishment: The shabab (young locals) have taken to spreading nails on the streets to punctuate tyres. Today when two officers' jeeps were punctuated, the entire population of that street was hauled out of homes and made to clear the streets. Under the steely eye of armed soldiers, elderly women and five-year-old children clear rotting garbage out of the gutter. Not one of the IDF's most auspicious moments!
I'm sure that various events in the IDF have brought out the best of man, but this seems to be bringing out the worst in him. The school has become a mini-fortress. We sleep in the classrooms, and all the cars belonging to the villagers are impounded in the yard.
The ultimate irony. Amidst a great cheer, an Israeli flag was hoisted to the top of the school by a group of soldiers. Quite sad that a sight which had once filled me with pride brought new feelings of shame.
The Jenin detention centre was primitive and depressing. A sad-looking tent with a few mattresses on the floor, ample barbed wire, ferocious guards and six defiant teenagers. One of them told me he's 18, married with one child, and works as a builder in Haifa, earning NIS-20 shekels a day. He swears on his mother's life that he wasn't outside, and that the ones with the green hats had dragged him out of this house in front of his wife and child, and the next thing he knew he was surrounded by barbed wire and guards. A new activist has been born.
Everywhere in Kabatiya we hear the same story: No one wants to make problems, but the few kids can't be controlled. The town has now been under curfew for three weeks, no electricity, no food supply, and two hours every three days to desperately gather enough vegetables to feed the children.
Among the soldiers, a depressing routine of almost wild abandon. Everybody here makes up their own rules. The young officers see our job here as some kind of game and their behaviour ranges from callousness to pure sadism.
One young officer, trying to prove himself, arrived at the school in his jeep today with a teenage curfew-breaker handcuffed and strapped to the hood. As he roared up to the school gates, he started wildly singing the tune of Hawaii Five-O through his loudspeaker. My own feeling is that the company-commander can't control the younger officers.
Two soldiers: one man is almost ashamed of where he's serving and what he's doing. "The whole curfew is absurd and terribly painful," he says. "When a child of three looks at me with hatred, I feel ashamed at what I'm doing."
Another man feels the patrols shame him. The pain, poverty and disgrace of the residents causes him great distress.
The first man has an interesting approach: "Talk to them, and explain that all this hostility won't do any good. Despite the fact there's mutual hatred, maybe we can explain to them that we can live together."
Both felt that the reservists are more suited for the work, more sensitive to the needs of the woman and children.
The question of morality troubles some soldiers, and they console themselves by maintaining that any other army would have created a bloodbath long ago. They're divided over whether the "democracy" in the territories is to Israel's advantage. "Only the iron fist will help here," says the first soldier, an interesting contradiction to his policy of dialogue.
August 18:
Another day hounding old women and children. Vulgar, unnecessary situations which humiliate them and degrade us. They look at us with a mixture of hatred, contempt and disdain. I am sure the residents are not all saints but this policy is plain crazy. And morally wrong.
The school that we've taken over is rapidly becoming a pigsty. Amazing what two weeks of reservists can do to a place. Meanwhile, the doctor of the town, who practically runs from house to house, tells me there's dysentery in Kabatiya. When I mention this to one of my officers, he tells me that if they stop throwing stones they won't have dysentery.
The reaction among the soldiers is frightening. They have almost become desensitized to the human misery around them, and what will happen to us if we have to stay like this for five years?
August 19:
Home for Shabbat (weekend). An absurdity: Half-an-hour out of our living hell, and I'm on the coastal road. Where is everyone? Why aren't they demonstrating? Where are the protests?
August 21:
Back to base. They're about to lift the curfew, and it's as if we're preparing for war. The Golani youngsters are particularly trigger-happy and shoot at any provocation. That's how the statistics happen.
With the curfew lifted, there's a semblance of village life, but the smouldering hatred in the eyes of the kids is plain.
Boredom has set in as we wait for someone to light the fuse.
August 26:
For four days we have been at a roadblock, partly to breathe a little, and partly to avoid having contact with the "locals". I am writing up my observations and determined to go public.
August 28
I think I'll stop here. Socially, it's been a difficult stint as I am shunned for protesting. People are tense, nervous, and perhaps most important, know they have another three weeks coming up soon.
Until when?
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