A Letter to IDF Soldiers
ELLEN SIEGEL
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2023, p. 21
Special Report
By Ellen Siegel
IN SEPTEMBER 2012, on the 30th anniversary of the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, I wrote a letter to the Israeli soldiers who were on duty there <www.972mag.com/a-letter-to-the-idf-soldiers-at-sabra-and-shatila>.
This September 2023, on the 41st anniversary of that massacre, we mark another atrocity in a Palestinian refugee camp, this one in Jenin, in the Occupied Territories. I am again writing a letter but this time to those Israeli soldiers on active duty who were in Jenin. I wonder if the children of those soldiers who were in Beirut participated in the invasion and destruction of this West Bank city.
Dear Israeli Soldiers:
Did you notice what a refugee camp looks like before you attacked? Were you aware of the massive overcrowding, the lack of ventilation, the open sewage system and the poor delivery of proper health care or an inadequate educational system? Did you realize that you live in a better world?
Let me remind you of another Israeli attack on another Palestinian refugee camp. In 1982, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Beirut surrounded the camps, thus not allowing anyone to leave, provided a communication system between the IDF and the Lebanese Phalange militia, supplied the flares so the Maronite Christian forces could systematically make their way through the camps slaughtering men, women and children. The Israeli soldiers observed the camps with binoculars from a forward command post and provided body bags and bulldozers to bury bodies.
In Jenin, the IDF directly killed civilians including children, critically injured many, left thousands homeless and displaced, destroyed infrastructure that provided clean drinking water and electricity. Other results: a lack of milk powder for babies, crushed cars, trashed and charred property, ripped up streets, restricted access of medical teams, ambulances and health care. Have any of you ever experienced any of these interruptions in your lives?
In Sabra and Shatila, the refugees could not defend themselves because the PLO had been evacuated. In Jenin, Palestinians fought back with some anti-tank barriers, a few guns and some improvised explosives against a mighty army using drones and fighter jets. There were repeated air strikes as well as a ground assault with a massive number of troops and bulldozers that entered the camp. Truly, a David and Goliath scenario.
The Israeli Kahan Commission, established after the Sabra and Shatila massacre, found the IDF and Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon indirectly responsible. Sharon’s hatred of the Palestinians has been passed on to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Will there be an inquiry into the Jenin invasion and will they be found directly responsible?
The aim of the massacre in the camps in Lebanon was to rid the camps of Palestinians. In the Occupied Territory Israel’s goal is to get rid of the Palestinian population. It is no secret, expulsion of the original inhabitants of this land is what Israel has expressed.
Has history repeated itself, have we not learned anything? Why are we abusing a people’s human rights?
Many of you and/or your parents have been demonstrating, organizing for an end to the violence and a just resolution to the conflict. Are you or your relatives members of Combatants for Peace, Refuser Solidarity Network, Breaking the Silence, Parents Circle…to just name a few?
Will you grow old in an apartheid state? As we approach the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah 5784), I ask that you vow to make peace. As we sing “Avenu Malkenu” (Our Father, Our King) at the closing service of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), may we be renewed for a year of goodness.
Think about the future. Will your children continue on this path of hatred and violence? L’dor v’dor (From generation to generation), we must learn from the past in order to create a better future. And may the memory of those lost be blessed.
Ellen Siegel is a Jewish American nurse who has been an anti-war, anti-occupation activist since the late 1960s. In the early 1980s, she helped organize one of the first Jewish peace organizations in Washington, DC, Washington Area Jews for an Israel Palestinian Peace (WAJIPP). She was working in a hospital in the Sabra camp during the 1982 massacre and subsequently testified before the Kahan Commission of Inquiry in Jerusalem. For decades she returned to Beirut every September to commemorate and remember the victims of the massacre and support the work of National Institution of Social Care and Vocational Training (Beit Atfal Assumoud www.socialcare.org). She is also a dedicated supporter of Animals Lebanon (www.animals lebanon.org) and an active advisory board member of Anera (www.anera.org)..
