Letter from Eran Efrait – a Veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces
Letter from Eran Efrait – a Veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces
Dear Nancy,
My name is Eran Efrati, I am Jewish, a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces, and a 7th generation Jerusalemite.
What I’ve seen in Israel over the last few weeks is beyond anything I have witnessed in my life.
I’ve seen terrified Palestinian children in Hebron and Halhul, sitting on the ruins of their homes.
I’ve seen mobs in the street chanting “death to Arabs” and pulling out Palestinian men from their stores to beat them as other Israelis stood idly by. I’ve seen soldiers lined up at the Gaza border, ready at a moment’s notice to invade.
And now, like you, I’ve seen the climbing death toll in Gaza, over 80 dead and some 500 injured –all by Israeli missiles, with no end in site.
As much as it pains me to say it, I don’t think I can do a lot about it, but I believe you can.
American voices – and especially Jewish American ones – are probably the most critical voices in the world right now.
We need you to tell us – Israeli politicians, the Israeli media, Israeli society – that you can’t support this. That you can’t support human rights violations. That you can’t support racism. That you won’t support the idea that Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian lives.
We know the roots of this are long and deep. But the truth behind this latest assault has finally coming: the Israeli government lied, and created this situation.
For weeks, the government knew that the three kidnapped teenagers were dead. But they instituted a gag order on the media, lied to Israelis and the world, and falsely claimed the mass arrests and collective punishment of Palestinians was all in the hopes of finding the teenagers alive.
In other words, their chosen response was to kidnap the mind of an entire country.
From the very beginning, this has been about punishing Palestinians. From the beginning, the government has been wiling to manipulate and use its own people for that goal.
Years of occupying the Palestinian people have produced values of vengeance in the place of the Jewish values of human life and equality.
Overhead, I hear airplanes headed to Gaza all day long, and I know there’s nothing I can do to stop them. And now we all know the lengths they’ve gone to justify this attack, and how fully Israeli society has bought into it. And I don’t think we can stop it from within.
But I think you can.
Please join me and sign this Open Letter now – if they get another 10,000 signatures, Jewish Voice for Peace will take out ads in Haaretz and the Jewish Forward with our message. We oppose the occupation, the bloodshed, the privileging of Jewish lives over others lives:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/301/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=16061
Eran Efrati
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https://org.salsalabs.com/o/301/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=140
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