On Wednesday, the Brown/RISD Hillel is scheduled to host an invite-only talk entitled “The IDF Firsthand: A Dinner and Lecture,” featuring Sgt. Benjamin Anthony, a veteran and reservist of the Israeli Defense Forces. Anthony is the founder of the organization Our Soldiers Speak, which facilitates presentations by members of the IDF at U.S. and U.K. venues and seeks to spread the “proud truth” of what the United Nations has deemed an illegal military occupation.
In an email sent out to invitees last month, Hillel described Anthony’s speech as “a rare opportunity to hear firsthand from a participant in one of the world’s most complex geopolitical conflicts.” But what does it mean to have “participated” in the IDF? And what truths are silenced when we bring members of an illegal occupying force to campus?
Participation in IDF activities means the systematic destruction of Palestinian homes, the bombing of schools and mosques and the continued siege on Gaza. It means participation in the micromanagement of Palestinian access to food, housing, education and social services, which is in direct contravention of human rights and international law. It means being provided with firsthand “experience” in the extrajudicial execution of civilians, the use of live ammunition on peaceful protesters, and the systematic detention and torture of an occupied population. In other words, participation in the IDF means participation in the daily execution of an illegal occupation and the systematic denial of Palestinian dignity.
The Israeli military has long held intimate connections with repressive regimes worldwide. Beginning in 1972, Israel became involved in training the Salvadoran military, police and death squads that were responsible for the deaths of over 15,000 civilians. Furthermore, IDF technology — developed for and tested on a captive Palestinian population — can be found in the hands of Brazilian police tasked with the proto-occupation of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. IDF profiling tactics are mirrored in the New York Police Department Demographics Unit and its continued surveillance and harassment of Muslims in New York, while Israeli weaponry and pacification tactics continue to be employed by the Indian military in the suppression of Kashmir protests. Former Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer is explicit: “People like to buy things that have been tested,” he said in the documentary “The Lab.” “If Israel sells weapons, they have been tested, tried out. We can say we’ve used this 10 years, 15 years.”
IDF activities have received broad and sustained censure from the international community. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, passed following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, calls for the withdrawal of the IDF from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, meanwhile, has been repeatedly rejected by the UNSC, including in Resolutions 252, 267, 471, 476 and 478. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled illegal Israel’s construction of the Separation Wall in the West Bank, while U.N. General Assembly resolutions dating back to 1948 support the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their homes and to receive compensation for any damage to property.
In defiance of a half-century of international outcry, the Israeli military continues to destroy Palestinian villages, repress freedom of movement with an expanding Separation Wall and an extensive, arbitrary permit system, and inflict daily violence on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and within Israel’s ever-changing borders. At the same time, Israel’s international military contracts and training agreements only expand, and the trade in technologies and tactics of repression has direct and dire consequences for occupied peoples across the globe.
Elevating Anthony’s voice serves only to perpetuate a violent narrative and legitimize the continued repression of human dignity in Palestine and in our own community. To invite an apologist for war crimes to this campus, especially in the context of a closed forum with “student leaders,” is profoundly disrespectful to the members of our community who have direct experience with IDF violence and repression — whether it be in occupied Palestine, Rio de Janeiro or New York City.
If this is to be a safe campus for all its students, faculty, staff and extended community, we cannot hand the occupier a microphone. If we seek what Anthony terms the “truths” of the IDF, we need only to engage with those around us. Until we recognize and take seriously the struggles of all members of our community, this will be neither a safe nor a “happy” campus.
As a diverse community, we stand with Palestinians and all those affected by Israel’s international military apparatus. In solidarity with those being racially profiled by Israeli-trained police forces from New York City to Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro and beyond, we condemn the violence the IDF perpetrates internationally. We would hope Brown/RISD Hillel could do the same.
Josette Souza ’14 is amazed to find herself having to write two op-eds against two different human rights violators being brought to Brown in one academic year. She can be reached at josette_souza@brown.edu.
Mika Zacks ’15 hopes the organizers recognize the errors of their ways and cancel the event. She was born and raised in ’48 Israel and can be reached at mika_zacks@brown.edu.
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