metro
IDF soldiers Lital
and Ari speak
to MSU ROTC
cadets about
their military
experiences.
In Their Own Words
IDF soldiers tour campuses with StandWithUs to share their experiences.
s the StandWithUs (SWU)
Emerson Fellow at Michigan
State University, I was privi-
leged to bring to campus two Israeli
soldiers who are on tour as part of
SWU's "Israeli Soldiers Stories" tour. The
soldiers also spoke at the University of
Michigan later that day.
Today, there is an attempt to defame
the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with
falsehoods and misinformation. There
are many IDF soldiers who feel a
deep sense of injustice about their
misrepresentation abroad. Five years
ago, StandWithUs decided to cor-
rect these false claims against the IDF
by putting reservists-students on tour to
speak at campuses and communi-
ties. They also talk about life in Israel,
answer questions and tell stories that are
not heard in the media.
Ari, 28, and Lital, 29, both from Tel
Aviv, spoke to MSU ROTC cadets about
their experiences in the Israeli Defense
Forces and the differences and similari-
ties between the IDF mandatory service
and the all-volunteer U.S. military.
The event was hosted by MSU ROTC,
co-sponsored by StandWithUs and
MSU Hillel. The event was open to
ROTC cadets only because last year the
SAFE (Students Allied for Freedom and
Equality) group on campus staged a pro-
test that disrupted the speeches.
Critics sometimes say that we always
speak "to our own" and need to reach
out to different communities. SWU's
"Israeli Soldiers Stories" (ISS) program
provides the opportunity to do just that.
The ROTC student body is predomi-
nantly not Jewish.
8
March 7 • 2013
Soliders' Stories
the woman's health and she contemplated
Ari knew he wanted to serve in a combat
waving the ambulance through to the hos-
role as soon as he was drafted into the IDF. pital, but she knew that terrorists routinely
He told participants about one particular
tried using emergency vehicles to smuggle
raid he was part of in a West Bank town
explosives into Israel. Lital's commitment
near the Arab town of Jenin.
to following protocol paid off, as
His company surrounded
she discovered explosive materi-
a building and successfully
als under one of the benches.
drove out the terrorists inside.
At this moment, she said, she
Meanwhile, in the back of
realized just how important her
the building, the other half
work is. She wasn't even sure
of the company saw a group
if the patient in the ambulance
of unidentified Palestinian
knew the explosives were there,
residents. The commander,
but she knew that if she had let
Yonatan, announced that
the ambulance go through, those
they were Israeli soldiers and
weapons almost certainly would
Corey Rosen
ordered the Palestinians to
have been used for a suicide
Special to the
bombing.
identify themselves, as per the
Jewish News
IDF's morality guidelines to
After graduating from the
prevent civilian deaths.
Frankel Jewish Academy in West
The Palestinians then began shooting
Bloomfield in 2010, I spent a gap year in
at the soldiers and Yonatan was injured.
Israel. Half the year, I worked on a kibbutz
At this point in the story, Ari began to tear
in the daycare center with children ages 3-4.
up. "Nothing in your training can prepare
After the escalation of rocket attacks in
spring of 2011, the children began partici-
you for the real thing:' he said. Yonatan
pating in rocket drills similar to the tor-
was evacuated to a military hospital,
where he later died of his wounds. The
nado drills we had practiced in elementary
Palestinian gunmen initially got away, but
school. The Israeli children had various
were captured a few days later.
reactions. Some were visibly scared, while
Lital spoke about the challenges facing
others acted like it was no big deal. It was
women in combat roles, which was espe-
difficult for me to see them going through
cially timely in light of the U.S. military's
this frightful time, but this is the unfortu-
nate reality of life in Israel.
recent decision to allow women into com-
bat roles, a practice the IDF started in the
Israeli parents used to tell their children,
mid-1990s.
"When you are 18, you will not have to go
"You are defending your home, your
to the army. We will have peace by then
and will no longer have an army." They
country:' she said about serving at a West
Bank checkpoint. She recounted a story
were convinced their own children would
about an ambulance carrying a pregnant
be spared, but since the Second Intifada
woman in labor that came to the border
and the subsequent breakdown in peace
crossing. Naturally, Lital was concerned for negotiations and the continuation of ter-
rorist infrastructures in the West Bank and
Gaza, Israelis are less and less optimistic.
I don't see this as a sign that Israelis want
peace any less than they have in the past
65 years, but I sense a feeling of hopeless-
ness with this situation.
Wolfgang Petermann, an MSU
senior and ROTC cadet from Harrison
Township, helped organize the event.
He commented, "It's one thing to fight
for peace and stability abroad, but Israeli
soldiers are fighting enemies right in their
own backyard:'
The American public is far removed
from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but
in Israel, civilians are never very far from
the action.
Lital said that she "will not apologize
for protecting her country until we have
peace." Young Israelis don't enjoy living in
a constant state of uncertainty, and they
don't like having to police the Palestinian
people. They would probably rather enjoy
the activities of typical 18-year-olds as
opposed to compulsory military service.
But they do this because this is the reality
they live in and, at the end of the day, they
are responsible for protecting Israeli citi-
zens, Jews and non-Jews alike.
Israelis, like most people, just want their
children to have a better life than they had
themselves, and this always means living
in peace with the world around them.
❑
Corey Samuels Rosen of Farmington Hills is a
sophomore at Michigan State University in East
Lansing, where he is the StandWithUs Emerson
Fellow 2013 and active in Hillel.
For more, see the cover story on Israel
advocacy.