Interview to ORI GIVATI

    BREAKING THE SILENCE 

                                                                   Interview and photographies 

    by Juanjo Pardo Mora

In 2018 I travelled to Israel and Palestine, and I knew about the existence of "BREAKING THE SILENCE", an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada. They believe that "occupation is morally indefensible" and they "aim to bring it to an end". In february 2021 I interviewed Ori Givaty, its Advocacy Director. 

 - Please Ori, may you introduce yourself and Breaking the Silence? 

IDF soldier. Jerusalem.

   Thank you Juanjo for this interview. My name is Ori Givati, I am 29 years old and I currently reside in Tel Aviv. I grew up in a village named Kfar Monash in the center of Israel. Throughout my upbringing I always heard how the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) would be one of the most important things I'll do in my lifetime. I never doubted, or had the opportunity to doubt, what we are sending our military to do in the Palestinian territories that we occupy. In Israel we have a 3 year mandatory military service, and I was super motivated to join. I wanted to participate in the protection of Israel, to protect those who served before me and those who will serve after. In 2010 I joined the IDF as a tank commander in the Armored Corps and I served until 2013. After I was discharged I went to work in agriculture and I managed a fruit picking business for 3 years. In January 2016 I was called for reserves duty in the occupied Palestinian territories, around the area of Qalqilya. For 3 weeks I rejoined the army and took part in many of the most basic missions that are routine in our control over the Palestinian population in the West Bank: military patrols, guarding points, checkpoints and invasions of villages. For the first time I had the opportunity to serve in the occupied territories and examine the situation from the point of view of a citizen and not of a soldier. It was only after this service that I decided to change the course of my life. I finally understood that I can't sit back while my country is ruling millions of people with a military force, especially after I personally took part in this control. With this understanding I decided to join "Breaking the Silence". "Breaking the Silence" is an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the moral price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life. Over the years we conducted interviews with more than 1200 soldiers who served in the occupied territories and gave testimony about their service. This is the base of all our work. We believe that the occupation is morally indefensible, and we aim to bring it to an end. 

- In the web of "Breaking the Silence'' we may read up to 27 categories of testimonies of former israeli soldiers during their service in Palestine; from abuses, arrests and assasinations, to restrictions of movement, destruction of property, humiliations, etc. During the last year, and depending on the information you have received, what kind of cases do you think are still the most worrying? 

   I truly believe that all of the testimonies are most worrying. Some of them deal with the routine of military control which includes things like home invasions, checkpoints, and patrols. Some of them talk about settler violence and some deal with specific instances. The occupation is built on all of these together. There is no way to control millions of people with a military force and do it without violence and intimidation, and in order to understand that we have to look at the entirety of our testimonies. 

  - Have any members of "Breaking the Silence" suffered any kind of reprisals because of their activism? 

   Yes. Being a member of "Breaking the Silence" is not easy when looking at the Israeli Society today. Our organization was incited against by the Prime Minister, prominent public figures and more. We are also being attacked by ultranationalist right wing organizations with false accusations on a monthly basis. Sometimes, these attacks are very personal and target specific individuals from "Breaking the Silence". It is important to understand that the democratic space in Israel is shrinking more than ever. Laws are passed against human rights organizations, public figures and politicians incite against them and every attempt to talk against the occupation is confronted with huge forces that attempt to shut it down and hide it from the public eye. This happens for a very evident reason, the truth that we are exposing about the realities of the occupation is something that the pro-occupation camp would prefer to keep in the dark. I think it is always important to mention that while we are indeed being attacked, we are not the victims of this situation. We took part in the occupation, we are the victimizers. No matter how much we will be attacked, the Palestinians are the ones we should think about when we talk about the implications of the occupation. 

  - Talking about the tours "Breaking the Silence" offers, and when you´ve had israeli citizens participating, are they shocked about the occupation in Palestine when they learn about the reality? Is the israeli society really aware? 

   Look, it is not fun to look in the mirror when you don't like what you see. The majority of Israeli society are either indifferent or supportive of the occupation. With that, we are the anti-occupation organization that meets the most Israelis per year. Over the years we met tens of thousands of Israelis, shared our testimonies, and showed them first hand what it means to control millions of people with a military force. The response to our activities vary. It depends on the specific person. What we are trying to do is make people make their choice and make up their mind about the occupation after seeing things for themselves. Some take action, some remain indifferent, and some decide that the occupation is fine according to their own moral standards. We believe that anyone that believes in equality and human rights, and truly looks at the mirror, listens and sees the occupation as it is, will oppose it. 

  - A sector of Hebron (the largest city in the West Bank, a sacred city for Muslims, Jews and christians, where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah are buried), is administered by the israelis. A large group of settlers live there. A few years ago, the peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, when visiting the city invited by your organization said: "is a ghost city, deserted, so many shops have disappeared... it gives a sensation of devastation and also gives the feeling of a latent violence that may emerge at any moment". It is so hard to know what the future holds for this city.

   I agree. For me, one of the most important moments in my political understanding happened when I first went to Hebron on a "Breaking the Silence" tour, and I was standing on a road that only non-muslims are allowed to walk on. Actually, "Breaking the Silence" was formed by soldiers who served in the city of Hebron during the Second Intifada. One of the most violent times in the history of the occupation and the conflict. These soldiers wanted to show the Israeli public what they are sent to do by our country. They started an exhibition of pictures they took during their service in the city, and presented it in Tel Aviv. This was the event that jump started "Breaking the Silence". Hebron is where we focus a lot of our work. There is no way to tell the future of Hebron, but it is important to understand that the future of Hebron is the future of the occupation. Violence emerges all throughout the occupied territories. Home invasions, segregated roads, military activity are all part of the system of the occupation. Hebron is one of the central examples where we can clearly and easily see the moral disaster which is the occupation, but it is not a singular case. The city center of Hebron is actually a microcosm of the occupation itself. This is a great opportunity to invite the readers to join us in Hebron whenever they have the opportunity to visit Israel and the Occupied Territories. 

      

      AIDA REFUGEE CAMP PICTURES (West Bank):

     BETHLEHEM PICTURES (West Bank):

Graffiti made by Banksy.

    - Talking about israeli settlers, in the West Bank live more than 400000, in east Jerusalem more than 200000. The settlements continue increasing. What are the actual reasons for Israelis to settle in Palestine? Religion? Looking for houses with more space? Other reasons? And what are the reactions of palestines owning the places taken over by the IDF? 

   There are a variety of reasons for which Israeli choose to move and live in the occupied territories. Some of them move because it is easier financially, as living in the settlements is subsidized heavily by the government. Some of them are immigrants that were actually moved to the occupied territories by the state, and some move because of their ideology. With that, it is important to clarify that while not 100% percent of settlers are ideological settlers, 100% of settlements are ideological. Every settlement in the occupied territories serves the purpose of the settlement movement. I can't imagine what it must feel like when your land is being taken over illegally by the citizens or the army of the state that is ruling over you. We can see a variety of individual reactions to this reality, and I believe that this question will be answered best by a Palestinian and not by me. The more important point here, is that the settlement and occupation enterprise dont see the Palestinians as equal to them. Palestinian human rights are disregarded and one of the best manifestations of that is the land theft by the state and by the settlers. - I sense that the presence of the IDF in the West Bank is to protect the israeli settlers. How is the relation between palestinians and settlers? May you add any testimony? The IDF justification for the presence in the West Bank is always security, both of Israel and the Israeli settlers. Now, I have to say it's true. There are major security threats, and every country has the right to defend its citizens. But the question is, what is the moral price we are paying for this security and is everything that we are doing in the occupied territories really for security. When I grew up and before I joined the army I always thought, and was told, that everything that we are doing in the occupied territories is security. Meaning that if we invade a home, its because we have to capture a dangerous Palestinian who is hiding there; if we put up a checkpoint, its because we have a specific license plate that we are looking for. When I first arrived at my military service in 2016, the first thing our commander told us was that we have to make all the Palestinians in our area feel that they cannot lift their heads up. He spoke about the entire Palestinian population where we served, not only about the violent or the dangerous ones. I am saying this to show one of the most basic elements of our control over the Palestinians. Differently than what I always thought, a very high number of activities in the West Bank are not done towards a specific threat. For example, one of the main missions we got during that service was to open one checkpoint every 8 hours, wherever we wanted and whenever we wanted, without having any intelligence over a specific threat. In order to control millions with a military force, we conduct missions with the aim to make all the Palestinians feel that we are watching them, to make them feel that they are being chased, these are all terms which appeared in our testimonies and are used by the military itself. This is how we control them, and 53 years of occupation made us justify everything that is being done to the Palestinians in our name, including, for example, training over the civilian population, home demolitions, and arbitrary home invasions, by saying security. I, as an Israeli citizen who believes in democratic values, can't accept this justification for every single action and I think it's very dangerous to accept it without asking any questions. The following is a testimony of a soldier talking about an incident of settler violence against Palestinians: 

          . First Sergeant, Nahal Special Forces, Hebron, 2013: 

  
Have you ever encountered settler violence directed against you or Palestinians? That happened quite a bit, both against us and against Palestinians. They have this practice of sorts, mainly the young ones, where they just stand in a place where Palestinians pass through, [they] just sit there and wait, and the moment they see any Palestinians go by, they simply get up and start provoking them, and that quickly leads to brawls. Do you remember seeing such incidents firsthand? Yes, in Tel Rumeida at the Gilber checkpoint. There, I remember, it was settler kids between the ages of 6 to 8. A group of them stand there next to the checkpoint, and the moment Palestinian kids go by, they just start provoking them and start a fight. I also remember many times when it was said that we can’t touch the settlers. It's also up to the Company Commander. There are company commanders who come up to you and say: if you see a brawl, for example, separate. Don’t worry, I’ll back you up. And what about other cases? In other cases you aren’t backed up. So what are you supposed to do? It depends on the orders you’re given, I remember being told not to touch them. I did pull them apart, but the children always stand by your post and ramble on. If you tell them to go away or something like that, they have a lot of nerve and they tell you: you can’t touch me, you can’t tell me where to be. They really feel like they own the place. 

   - Ori, I would like to ask you now about the refugee camps. In 2018 I visited some of them, as Aida, ´Ain sultan and Jenin. All the camps are managed by the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for palestine refugees in the near east). The presence and proceedings of the IDF in the camps are similar that in the rest of Palestine, even if UNRWA is present? 

   IDF activity is quite similar in the entire West Bank. Home invasions, military patrols and the rest of the actions that make up the routine of our control over the Palestinian people happen without relation to the specific location. It doesn't matter if it's area A, B, or C (the areas of the West Bank defined under the Oslo accords from 1993), and it doesn't matter if it's a big city or a small refugee camp. We control the entire Palestinian population with our military 24/7 everywhere. 

Jenin Refugee Camp  (West Bank).

   - I have seen concrete walls around 9 metres high (as the one to access Bethlehem), fences, concertina wires in the mountains, walls near the roads, watchtowers. From 2002 Israel continue building this separation barriers. I crossed also some checkpoints, and it is easy to realize that these places are conflict areas. May you tell us about any relevant testimony happened in any of this kind of barrier? 

   One of the main issues with the security barrier is that in many areas it created a wall between Palestinians and their private lands. The following is a testimony that can show us an example of what this separation can create: 

             . First sergeant, Armored Corps, 188 Brigade, Tulkarem area, 2016: 

You have a patrol and the role of the patrol is to open the agricultural gates for farmers (entrance gates into the Seam Zone –the part of the West Bank trapped between the Separation Barrier and the Green Line– designed to allow Palestinian farmers access to cultivate plots located beyond the Barrier). Now, on the face of it, it’s the simplest, most uncomplicated task, and there’s nothing, it’s not really that interesting. So I found myself every morning opening gates, closing gates, letting about 200 people through, checking their ID cards, letting them pass through to the other side. They come back, [you] open the gates for them, sometimes check their IDs, let them back in. And that’s broadly it. The people who crossed were mostly a lot of farmers, [they] would go through in tractors and stuff. There were also old women, there were also young people, but generally you see that most of them are just people who are going to work. You had the Crossings Military Police who were in charge of checking the IDs and I was charge of securing [the parameter]. It was during the time of the stabbings so we were a little on edge, so we’d open the door (gate) for them with helmets and with weapons and bullet-proof vests and so what would happen is a person would come out of the gate and there’s already a soldier who’s aiming a weapon at everyone. A person comes out of the gate, goes over to the security check area, a soldier is aiming a weapon in his face. [He] goes to the gate outside, another soldier is aiming a weapon at him. Three different soldiers are aiming their guns at him. Sometimes it would get to the point, they (the Military Police) would check them and would want to ensure that they (the Palestinians) are coming to work in agriculture, what they’re, like, supposed to be doing. So I had this one time when he (the Palestinian) was, it was like surreal. The person arrived, it was in the morning, arrives at the security check area, the Military Police [soldiers] tell him: “Get out of here, go home, you’re all in nice jeans, look at you, there’s no way you’re here to go to work.” Where was this? A gate across from Deir al-Ghusun. But did he have a permit? He had a permit, he had everything. So the Military Police [soldier] can decide, it’s within his authority to decide whether he goes through or not, even though he has a permit? Listen, as far as I’m concerned as a soldier, while I’m like in charge of security, it was cool. What do I mean by cool? As far as I’m concerned he (the Military Police soldier) is the one who decides. Which is, you know, it’s a Military Police [soldier] who’s like... I don’t know how much what he’s doing even interests him and... And anyway, so he (the Palestinian) went back, went out the gate, went back to the red part, to the Palestinian part. We all saw him go, get his clothes dirty, come back and then he (the military police soldier) let him through. What’s the point? There is no point, it’s shit, because these areas (the areas of the Seam Zone) are actually theirs (the Palestinians’) and every morning they need special permission to go to an area that’s theirs because the fence (Separation Barrier) was built [there]. Truth is, I don’t know what the logic is of building the fence in that particular place. Your daily routine is to [stop] whoever isn't there to go to work, because who knows what he’s going to do. And if he comes dressed too nicely, then he’s not coming to work, he’s coming to hang out in Baqa al-Gharbiyye. [But] the man has a work permit, [so] how does that have anything to do with it? The work permit doesn’t have a dress code. 

Separation wall and access to Aida Refugee Camp and Bethlehem.

   - Moving now to Gaza Strip, what is the situation in the border fence today after the deadly israeli retaliation for the Great March of Return in 2018-2019? May you add any testimony from a former veteran israeli soldier? 

   We base all of our work on testimonies we receive from soldiers. Unfortunately, we are yet to receive testimonies from soldiers who served around Gaza during the Great March of Return. The situation in Gaza is worrying, and I would like to refer the readers to the booklet we published about operation Protective Edge (2014). Here is one of these testimonies: 

           . Infantry, First Sergeant, Northern Gaza Strip: 

There were 30-40 [Palestinian] guys in the first house at which we arrived. An opening was made [by our forces] in its outer wall with a breaching frame –it’s this device with explosives in it – and then we entered. Was there a public warning for people to get out? We didn’t know they were inside at that moment. Before that stage there had been all these leaflets (warning people to leave), and we saw them running away when we started entering [the Gaza Strip]. It was evident that the civilians understood that we were coming. At this point there was a massive deployment of backup forces, of the various assistive forces. This specific house hadn’t been hit by any tank shells when we entered it. As far as I could tell this was due to a mistake, it was supposed to have been hit. Lucky 30 for them it hadn’t. But in general, every house you were meant to enter was supposed to have been fired at beforehand, if not with a tank shell then with a tank-mounted 0.5 [machine gun]. This one was a house with a very, very large courtyard, and that’s where they were all gathered; there were signs indicating that they had packed quickly. I think they may have been under the impression that they would be able to stay. The field interrogator grabbed one of them and took him aside with the company commander; I have no idea what happened there, I suppose he tried to get as much information out of him as was possible. Ultimately, it was made clear to them that now they need to get the hell out of the place. They did. Where to? Further south, I guess. That was of no concern to me whatsoever. At 4:00 AM, four or five women came over, they had put bags on a stick, like white flags. I don’t speak Arabic, but from their gesturing I gathered that they had come back, so they claimed to take stuff they had forgotten in the house, stuff they considered critical. Obviously that didn’t happen. What did you do at that point? We fired toward their feet. 

  - When I was preparing this interview, I had a thought about children from both sides. I remember what Mario Vargas Llosa, the peruvian writer, told when visiting Hebron: "the children suffer more than anyone. They are not free to be children. They have to live like adults. The palestinians ones live the oppresion, repression, and the children of the israeli settlers live in a cage". Do you think that the new generations will have a more friendly approach to the conflict? 

   Unfortunately I think that we are now on a bad trajectory. The Palestinians have been living under our military boots for the last 53 years, and the indifference in our society towards our military control over them worsens every day. However, I truly believe that the occupation will end, it has to. In order to make that happen, we have to keep talking about it, exposing it to anyone who is willing to listen. I, as an Israeli citizen, am first and foremost responsible for my side. The anti-occupation camp in Israel must understand that in order to end occupation we have to take action, vote for parties who promise to work to end it, meet Palestinians face to face, join protests and do everything in our power to not let the occupation remain behind the curtains. 

  - Next month of March the parliamentary elections will be holded in Israel; and legislative elections in May and presidencial elections in July in Palestine. What combinations of elections winners would give hope to restart the peace agreement? 

   I will answer just in regards to Israel. We in "Breaking the Silence" say one thing. People who aspire to end the occupation need to vote for political parties who publicly state that they will work to end it. Unfortunately, today in Israel all candidates for the leadership do not speak about the occupation and this is exactly what needs to change. Our country’s politicians must understand that ignoring and supporting the occupation goes against any basic democratic values. 

  - One friend of mine and documentary photographer, Emilio Alemán, would like to ask you a very difficult question: What do you think the Israelis and Palestinians would be ready to renounce today, in order to get Peace between both nations, that would not mean a grievance for anyone of them? 

   I believe that we as Israelis must let go from the perception that we can keep on occupying millions of people with a military force forever. Firstly because of the severe human rights violations we are responsible for, but also because of the fact that with every day that passes our own society becomes more and more corrupted, racist, violent and militaristic. The story of the peace agreement is not related whatsoever to a specific renouncement by either side. Throughout the years many different solutions were put on the table. It is related to the political and social will to end the occupation and the conflict. About the Palestinians, I am the last person to say what they should renounce. This situation is not equal. One side, us, is the occupier, and the other side is the occupied. The path to a peace agreement starts with the end of the occupation. 

  - We are almost finishing. Abraham, the first patriarch of judaism, had Ismael as firstborn, from whom descends Mahoma, and then Isaac, second patriach of judaism. Are their descendants doomed to mutual distrust? 

   If I would think that, I wouldn't be doing this interview. I believe that the occupation will and must end and we should all work together to get there. It includes your readers who now know more and I encourage you to log in to our website https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/ come with us on tours, talk to your families and friends, every person that speaks about the occupation is a person that helps us achieve its end. 

 - Since "Breaking the Silence" was established in 2004, what has the organization achieved? 

   It is hard to quantify our success when looking at our very ambitious goal. Since our foundation in 2004 we met dozens of thousands of people, did thousands of tours and lectures and participated in hundreds of different events. I believe that with every person we meet, with every article we publish or interview like this one that we participate in, we are one step closer to ending the occupation.                                         ■ 

Western wall. Jerusalem.