An Israeli Soldier's Story - Eran Efrati

[Surya Gayatri]

This young ex-soldier Israeli seems sincere and his first-hand experiences as part of the Israeli Army of Occupation (IDF) certainly deserve to be heard.

I found the YouTube link on a site discussing the recently released "Night Will Fall", a shattering Holocaust documentary originally made from military footage by Sidney Bernstein and Alfred Hitchcock, but which was shelved for 70 years.

According to soldier Efrati's presentation, the Israeli state and military machine are using efficiently brutal methods to suppress a hapless minority within the borders administered by them.

Humm....sounds disturbingly familiar. As the holocaust documentary-makers so presciently said 70 years ago--"Unless the world learns the lesson these pictures teach, NIGHT WILL FALL...but by God's grace, we who live will learn..."

Will they re-learn what they seem to have forgotten 70 years after the fact?

"The talk by Eran Efrati was filmed in Denver, Colorado on March 3, 2014 as part of The Soldier and the Refusenik U.S. tour with Maya Wind. Eran talks about his experiences in the IDF and then more broadly discusses Israel, its relationship to the U.S. and the global expansion of militarism.

Eran Efrati, 28, was born and raised in Jerusalem. After graduating high school he enlisted in the IDF, where he served as a combat soldier and company sergeant in Battalion 50 of the Nachal Division. He spent most of his service in Hebron and throughout the West Bank.

In 2009, he was discharged and joined Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers working to raise awareness about the daily reality in the Occupied Territories.
...
Since leaving Breaking the Silence, his investigative reports appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Today he is active with the Israeli groups Anarchists Against the Wall and Boycott from Within."


More recent news on young Efrati. Apparently, his whistleblowing has hit a nerve. It would seem the lessons of 70 years ago are being ignored:

Israeli soldier arrested for speaking on Facebook about retaliation against Gaza civilians

http://fr.globalvoicesonline.org/2014/08/05/172965/

Eran Efrati is a former sergeant in the Israeli armed forces who has become a whistleblower. Aged 28, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities and questioned about his research on the use of prohibited weapons in Gaza.

Tuesday, July 29, Efrati announced on Facebook that he had information from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that demonstrate what he says is the real reason for the massacre of July 20 Shuja'iyya 9 days ago, namely that civilians were bombed and killed by the Israeli army in retaliation for the deaths of soldiers in their units.

[libodem]

1. K&R

Bookmarked