Speech given at a rally in Garema Place, Canberra, organised by Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine (AJPP) and supported by the ACT Network Opposing War (ACTNOW), at 12 noon on Sunday 9th November 2003. The rally was one of many held around the world in opposition to Israel’s construction of the apartheid wall in the West Bank. (November 2003)


It’s not an easy thing for me to criticise Israel. Criticising and speaking against one’s own tribe or family is always difficult. But the truth has to be told. Because not telling the truth is costing the lives of Palestinians, their dignity, their emotional well-being, their human rights, their land, their future and the future of any possibility of justice and compensation for their suffering, since 1948 at the hands of my people. One of the most difficult battles we are fighting now is against Zionist propaganda, and against forces that are doing everything they can to silence the Palestinian story and deny their history. The distortion of truth and the politics of memory are at the heart of this conflict.

Most Israelis are either completely ignorant of their true history, or they lie to themselves about it. Until they begin to accept the truth about themselves and their past, and the truth about how the state of Israel really came to be, they will continue to believe that the Palestinians are a threat to their very existence, and will continue to believe that Israel has done, and is doing nothing wrong.

The Israeli historian Tom Segev says that the only official version of history available in Israel for a long time was the Zionist version, and that what Israel had, before historians like him had access to declassified archival material, is not a history but a mythology. This mythology is the reason why so many Israelis support an aggressive, undemocratic and militaristic government of generals despite the fact that this government is leading the country astray.

Most Israelis believe that the war of 1948 was a war of ‘few against the many’, and most Israelis believe that the Palestinians were not expelled but fled their villages and cities because of a fear campaign instigated by the Arab countries. They blame the victims for their own tragedy. According to Avi Shlaim, another Israeli historian, at each stage of the war the Israeli forces seriously outnumbered all the Arab forces put together, and they were also much better equipped. By the end of the war the superiority ratio was two to one. The war was won by the stronger side, but Israelis still believe that they were, and still are the weaker side, the victim, that won only by some miracle. It is clear to me that this distorted view of reality is helping them avoid any responsibility for their actions.

The military plan called ‘plan D’, which was devised and implemented by the Israeli forces in 1948

…ordered the capture of Arab cities and the destruction of villages, it both permitted and justified the forcible expulsion of Arab civilians… with the goal of securing not only the areas allocated for the Jewish state by the UN partition plan but also the Jewish settlements outside these areas, and corridors leading to them so as to provide a solid and continuous basis for Jewish sovereignty. [This resulted in] …700,000 of the country’s Arab inhabitants having ended up as refugees in the neighbouring Arab countries…

I am wearing a ‘Deir Yassin Remembered’ T-Shirt. The 1948 massacre of 100 civilians in the village of Deir Yassin was one of the darkest moments in Palestinian history. It is still not talked about openly in Israel to this day.

In many ways what we see now is a continuation of policies and attitudes that were established in 1948 and implemented ever since.

Israelis are consumed by a delusional fear of annihilation - a left over from Jewish trauma - and this fear is preventing them from seeing reality and from taking responsibility for their actions. It is this fear that enables young Israeli soldiers today to go into the occupied Palestinian territories and to behave toward Palestinian civilians with indiscriminate brutality, and complete lack of respect for their humanity.

For many years Israelis have turned a blind eye to the economic exploitation of the Palestinians who served as an economic underclass in Israel and a slave labour force with no rights, proper wages or legal protection. This too is not discussed openly in Israel.

Israel is a brutal and aggressive state and it has been that way since its beginnings. I call on anyone who feels uncomfortable with this statement to make an effort to read proper history, and that includes our leaders here in Australia and influential members of the Jewish community here and abroad who are just as ignorant as so many Israelis.

I am often told that I am too harsh in my criticism of Israel and that other countries are just as bad. Whether or not other countries are worse than Israel is irrelevant to me. I can see the devastating impact that Israel’s actions have on the Palestinian people and I know that there is no excuse for any of this. Because I am from Israel, this is personal to me and I leave the job of scrutinising the behaviour of other countries to their own people.

In an article in the Ha’aretz newspaper published 4 days ago, Ze’ev Schiff, an Israeli journalist, complains that the Israeli authorities do nothing to stop the settlers from cutting down hundreds of olive trees. He says that

Cutting down an olive tree is a symbol of the intentions of the rioters - to eradicate and expel their neighbors. It is a disgusting deed that is also a form of terrorism.

In its consistent and systematic actions against the Palestinians Israel is showing that it cannot be trusted to engage in a constructive peace process - a process that acknowledges and addresses the historical injustices committed against the Palestinians, that is prepared to consider compensation and right of return, and that will end the occupation once and for all.

Oren Medicks, an Israeli peace activist said in a speech he gave in Montreal recently, that the Israeli peace movement is fragmented into several small groups each struggling to survive. He says, “We should not wait for the Israelis to get their act together”. I believe that we cannot afford to wait for the Israelis themselves to get their act together because the Palestinians are running out of time.

As a former Israeli and a former soldier in the Israeli military I appeal to the Australian government, and to the rest of the world to intervene and to force Israel to take responsibility for its history and its actions, and to end this brutal occupation immediately.

Page content last modified: 11 Nov 2003