By Dorothy Naor
Israeli Peace Activist
Today Israel commemorates more than 20,300 soldiers killed since 1948. So many dead, for what?
Neither the establishment of a Jewish state nor Israel's military victories attained the Zionist dream of security for Jews. To the contrary— nowhere else in the world since World War II are Jews less secure than in Israel.
Just the past 4 1/2 years nearly 1,000 noncombatants have died in attacks. Besides, the present relative calm in Israel is illusory. Violence will again erupt unless Israel's leaders cease expansion and ethnic cleansing.
Loss of life is but one cost of occupation. Israelis pay dearly also in poverty, violence, and post-traumatic stress. Drastic cuts in social benefits have reduced Israel's social expenditures to among the lowest in western countries, leaving nearly 1.5 million Israelis below the poverty line, one of every five children going to bed hungry, more Israelis than ever before depending on soup kitchens and more homeless. At their expense, the Israeli government spends enormous funds to create the "greater Israel."
The separation wall is being erected at $4 million a mile, with 400 miles projected— twice the length than had it been built on the "green line." Six thousand highly subsidized suburban-type homes are planned for West Bank settlements. And ample money exists for building Israeli-only roads in Palestinian territories.
The worsening economic conditions contribute to escalation of stress and violence. Thus one of every five elderly Israelis is now subject to abuse, and the Israeli police record a 36 percent increase in violence among minors this past year.
A direct cost of occupation and threat to Israel's welfare is post-traumatic stress. Jewish youngsters in other countries do not face it, since upon graduating from high school they may do as they please. Israeli 18-year olds, however, are doomed by their government's lust for land to combat a primarily civilian population.
Consequently, post-traumatic stress disorder is a persistent threat. In 2003 more soldiers died from suicide than were killed in battle. Others upon discharge become addicted to drugs and alcohol. And yet others become violent.
"This is a ticking bomb," a counselor at a rehabilitation center relates. Help is unavailable for many soldiers who have gone "into terrible distress of drugs, beatings, violence, impatience, ... soldiers who clashed with a civilian population, and when they were discharged understood that they had been wrong."
Hundreds, he reveals, "are roaming about with the feeling that there is no point to living, and the path to suicide and drugs is very easy. We are afraid that former soldiers will commit criminal acts as a result of their distress."
One discharged woman blames the drug phenomenon on the "sick Israeli society"— a "society of war." The soldier who killed "a man or a child" or "entered the home of an Arab family at night, beat a child, a mother and took the father into detention" upon release takes drugs "to try to forget the pictures that are with him all the time since then." She said that drugs are "an expression of the strong desire of young Israelis to escape from the insanity that has been forced on them."
Yehuda Shaul of "Breaking the Silence" (soldiers' testimonies of acts committed on Palestinians) caps it all: "It's a situation that screws up everyone. ... People start out at different points and end up at different points, but everyone goes through this process. No one returns from the territories without it leaving a deep imprint, messing up his head."
If Israelis are to experience security and peace, their governments must relinquish occupation and force. As Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, wisely observed, "Oppression naturally creates hostility against oppressors. ..."
The sole hope for a better future for Israelis lies in justice and freedom for Palestinians. As Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University, has said: "We either sink together or swim together."
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