After completing his three-year mandatory service in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) in March 2004, Yehuda Shaul found himself confronted with some very uncomfortable questions. As a 21-year-old, he was now free to live a ‘normal’ life, but his experience serving in the military had changed him forever.

“I served from March 2001 till March 2004 as an infantry combat soldier and a commander,” he related over a Skype call from Jerusalem, Israel. “I finished my service as a company sergeant. A company is a group of around 120 soldiers. Two years of my time were spent fighting war in the West Bank. And out of them, 14 months were in Hebron, which is the largest Palestinian city in the south of West Bank. It was more or less the peak of the violence during the second Intifada in 2002-3. From my service I had many doubts — even though I come from the political Right.”

Born and bred in Jerusalem, 31-year-old Shaul attended high school in a settlement in the West Bank. “My sister is a settler today, my cousins were settlers in Gaza before 2005, and I’m also a practicing orthodox Jew,” he added, “Throughout my service the things I’ve done and I’ve seen things that didn’t feel always the right thing. But the thing is, when you’re a soldier, you always find a way to move on, yeah?”

“Somewhere in the back of our mind we all felt that something was wrong and that’s how Breaking the Silence was born. We just started sitting down together in our barracks talking about things we’d done and seen. And the one thing that shocked us was that people back home in Israel have no clue.Our own society that is sending us to ‘do the job’, so to speak, doesn’t know what ‘doing the job’ means. We decided, back then, our slogan was ‘Let’s bring Hebron to Tel Aviv’.” — Yehuda Shaul, former IDF soldier

It was only towards the end of his service when he began to plan his life after the military that his experiences began to trouble him. “I just found myself in this place where for the first time in my life as an adult, I was thinking through a civilian perspective rather than things through a military perspective,” he said, “That was for me, in a way, the turning point. It was a very terrifying moment because once you stop thinking as a professional combat soldier, without military terminology and it stops making sense anymore. I just felt I lost justification for 90 per cent of the actions I took part in.”

Shaul turned to the only people he felt would understand his inner turmoil, his comrades from the military. He soon discovered that they all felt as morally conflicted as he did. “Somewhere in the back of our mind we all felt that something was wrong and that’s how Breaking the Silence was born,” he said, “We just started sitting down together in our barracks talking about things we’d done and seen. And the one thing that shocked us was that people back home in Israel have no clue.

Our own society that is sending us to ‘do the job’, so to speak, doesn’t know what ‘doing the job’ means. We decided, back then, our slogan was ‘Let’s bring Hebron to Tel Aviv’.”

Breaking the Silence is a group of veteran IDF combatants that are focused on collecting stories by other soldiers, both serving and retired, to the reality of life in the Occupied Territories. They hold public readings, exhibitions, talks in educational institutions and give tours to people of the Occupied Areas for a first-hand experience as well.

In the organisation’s own words, “Soldiers who serve in the Territories witness and participate in military actions which change them immensely. Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still explained as extreme and unique cases. Our testimonies portray a different and much grimmer picture in which deterioration of moral standards finds expression in the character of orders and the rules of engagement, and are justified in the name of Israel’s security.”

They held their first photo and video exhibition on June 1st 2004 in Tel Aviv. “We were 64 people from my unit who served in Hebron. Our photos in Hebron are on the wall; our faces are on the screen with video testimonies. We didn’t have any plans about where we’re going from here. It just felt like the right thing to do.” And then all hell broke loose. It was the first time a group of veterans had organised themselves this way. Needless to say, they were the talk of the country and over 7,000 people came to see the exhibit. The group was also invited to hold their exhibit in the parliament for a month.

How could they speak out against their experiences in the military and not face any kind of threats? “That’s the thing about Israel — it has both Hebron and Tel Aviv,” responded Shaul, “Meaning … we have been carrying out for 47 years already (more than two thirds of the time we’ve existed as a state) a cruel military regime over millions of Palestinians, stripping them from their rights and dignity and abusing them on a day-to-day basis. But on the other end there is Tel Aviv — there is an Israel where an Israeli Jew like me can do this kind of work.”

“Again, mind you, I’m not a Palestinian from the Occupied Territories. I’m not a Palestinian from Israel, I’m an Israeli Jew. So, in a sense it’s a very different reality. I know sometimes, things from outside, people from outside, we seem like worse or from outside it’s a bit more difficult to see this grey area. But we are definitely in this white grey area.”

The backlash was delayed, but it did arrive. In the second week of the exhibit, they were ‘investigated’ by the military police. “They broke into the gallery, confiscated stuff, calling us for interrogation but I think once they realize that it just brings more media attention to us they kind of like left us alone,” he related.

Shaul then related an experience that seemed difficult to talk about. Pausing numerous times in the middle and taking deep breaths before continuing, as if the memory brought back the same emotions he experienced as when the incident happened, he mentioned how during the exhibit, the IDF sent the Brigadier Deputy General of his unit, the Nahal brigade, to give ‘answers’ to them. They showed him around the exhibit.

“After about 20-25minutes he told us, in front of all the cameras, ‘You know what guys? I completely understand and agree with everything you’re saying, but there is one thing in which we disagree. What you show here in the exhibit, the process the soldiers go through and dub it as numbness or insensitivity, I call it growing up.’”

“To be honest, I did not have the guts to answer, I was so shocked,” related an audibly incredulous Shaul, “But my friend, Jonah, who served with me as a sergeant and is involved in Breaking The Silence from the beginning, is a very sharp guy. He looked straight at the Brigadier’s face and said, ‘You know what, you’re completely right. This is how people grow up in Israel and that’s why we do what we do.’”

It’s been 10 years since Breaking the Silence came into being. They’ve interviewed over 1,000 people so far and conduct an average of 100 interviews a year. “Around 30pc who speak to us do it during their service,” he related, “So we have members of Breaking the Silence who are today in Gaza.”

These are times of war, but “in ‘normal’ days, so to speak, there are people from the Right getting angry, people from the Left are a bit acceptable, but the main thing is that we talk a lot with young Israelis before they draft. That includes military academy students, youth wing, high school kids. They’re usually shocked because this is not a narrative and a story that they tend to get in the mainstream education system.”

“Silence is not an Israeli disease. Silence is a human epidemic,” stated Shaul strongly, “Yeah, you know, still this is our home and we’re going to fight to clean it as we say. To make it look the way we want it to look.”

“Breaking the Silence is about forcing a discussion — about the moral crisis about maintaining a prolonged occupation. It’s about trying to use our experience, our identity as veterans to open these questions here. To try to raise the one question which I believe is the most important: what are our moral boundaries in society? To what extent do we stand behind our military and when do we say, ‘No, not in our name.’”

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 17th, 2014