Eran Efrati 03-03-2014 an ex israeli soldier

Video Transcript:

My name is Aaron Fletti, I'm 28 years old. I'm from Jerusalem, born and raised in Jerusalem. I'm an actually seven generation in Jerusalem. My grandpa was born in the old city, was a fifth generation in Jerusalem. He was born in the middle of the old city in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. His mother died in birth. A Palestinian neighbor took him in and breathed with him. So he was actually a Palestinian Jew. This is how he knew himself. He grew up in Arabic before he knew Hebrew. All of his friends were Palestinians and some Jewish people that was there around him. My grandpa from my father's side, that was born the best way two and a half weeks ago. In Jerusalem, in his home. And my and me were debating if I should go back to do the Shiva, the wheel in our religion of the seven days. Of morning, and I was talking with my father asking him if I should go back. And my aunt talked and we decided that it's much more important for me at least to continue to do this lecture in his memory. Because today, so many people, thank you. So many people today cannot imagine the possibility of Jews and Palestinians living together on the same piece of land. Although my grandpa was the living proof of it already happened a lot before Israel was established. So this is for my grandpa. So hi. I grew up in Jerusalem in a very Zionist, militaristic family. Like most of the families in Jerusalem or in Israel altogether. Most of the families are Zionists. I guess you were aware of that. Except for maybe the older Orthodox Jews that there are very different species than all of us. But we are all grew up as Zionists. I grew up knowing that being a Zionist, meaning being a Jew, it's the exact same thing. And being anti-Zionist, don't want to be a Zionist, meaning being an anti-Semitic. Hating all the Jews. If you're anti-Zionist, you want all the Jews to die. This is how I grew up at home. I grew up in a very militaristic home. My only brother, my older brother was an officer in a special unit of the paratroopers in Israel. My mother was an officer in the Israeli army and my father was a very high officer in the Israeli army. And until today, he's the head of investigation of the Jerusalem police. So I'm coming from a good legacy in my family. I grew up in my home in Jerusalem with my grandma and grandpa for my mother's side as well. And they came from Hungary after the Holocaust. And they were the only survivors of their family after the Holocaust. My grandma was an Auschwitz survivor. In a very early age, I grew up understanding that there's something wrong with the world. Because I saw my grandma and how she reacted to things. You know, with a lot of fear, with a lot of paranoia back at home. One of my first childhood memories was waking up in the middle of the night from screaming. My grandma used to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. She had dreams on Auschwitz and the Holocaust. And all of the house would wake up very terrified. And my mom used to run into my room, me and my brother's room, and we'll come us down. And we'll explain to us, you know, why is grandma screaming? What is Auschwitz? What is the Holocaust? Why did they do it to the Jews? And I grew up knowing that I want to be a better human being. I grew up knowing that something so terrible happened. So the next time something like that happens, something terrible in history will happen. I will be there on the right place at the right time. I want to be this kind of man. I grew up starting to want to know everything I can about the Holocaust so make sure it can never happen again in any way. So I grew up in except for learning in school about what happened to the Jews, like all of the guys in school. I started to read about the Nazis. How would soldiers would go out in the morning to camps and go back at the afternoon or night to their families to tuck down their little babies to kiss their wife? That would drive me crazy. I read mine camp when I was 15 years old. I became very, very much involved in the story of the Holocaust. And in the 11th grade, like most of my friends, like most of the people in Israel, I will find myself in a delegation on my way to Poland. I don't know, you can't see it really well, right? I don't know what to do about the lights, but this is us in Auschwitz doing a trip of two weeks in... Oh great, thank you. And all the camps don't fall asleep. In all the camps in Poland, every school in Israel sent their kids to do that. And after two weeks of going from camp to camp, the last camp was Auschwitz. This is Birkenau. And the last camp was Auschwitz and I'm standing in the same camp that my grandma survived. And in some point I'm standing in the same hut that my grandma used to sleep in. And exactly in that moment, it was a very emotional moment for me. I'm getting a letter. The letter was from my grandma. My grandma wrote me a letter and my mom sneaked into the delegation through my guides. And I'm getting the letter and the letter says, Well, Iran, you're such a sweet boy and you have such a big heart and you're so sensitive. But I'm afraid that maybe you're too sensitive. It's very important to know everything you can about the Holocaust. That's for sure. You have to learn about that. But the Holocaust was not your fault. You don't need to take it upon yourself. You don't feel that you're a bad person because it happened. The world is a bad place. It's fine. Don't take it upon yourself anymore. I'm worried about you. It was the most sensitive and sweet letter I could get exactly at that moment and decided to read it to my friends. And the minute I finished the letter, one of my guides came up to me and said, Well, Iran, you know what your grandma really wanted to tell you in the letter, right? I said, yeah, sure that I'm a very sweet boy and I got a very big heart. And I'm so nice. I said, no. What your grandma really wanted to tell you is that a second Holocaust will happen. And it will happen sooner than you think. And if you don't want to take it upon yourself, that a second Holocaust has happened and you didn't do anything about it, you need to go back home, finish your school and join the best unit you can in the military to make sure that a second Holocaust will never happen. Not your grandma's sakes, not your your sakes, on your kids' sakes. You have to do it. Okay, I said, fine, this is what my grandma wants. And then I went back home and I finished my school and I'm joining the IDF as a combat soldier. This is me, a young handsome soldier at the IDF. I don't understand why people are laughing when I'm showing the picture. I was a very young handsome soldier in the IDF. And I'm joining the IDF and immediately being sent to Boothcamp. And Boothcamp was basically seven months of training for a war. For seven months, every day we were training for a war. A war with Egypt, a war with Syria, with Lebanon, with Iran. For seven months, every day. But I guess it's a little confusing now because Israel was not in a war in the last 40 years. Since 1973, Israel did not perform in a war. In front of another army, another country with airplanes, with tanks. We did operations in what we called, you know, occupied land or terrorist group with Hamas and Gaza, with his Bala'in Lebanon. But we were not performing in a war. But nonetheless, all we did was getting trained for a war. And throughout the seven months, not once, we talked about Palestinians. And when the seven months was over, I was sent to a very different kind of war. I was sent to Palestine. And I find myself in the biggest Palestinian city in the West Bank in South of Palestine, called Hevlon, or El Halil in Arabic. And I'm standing in a city of 180,000 Palestinians and writing the heart of the city in the middle of the city, there's a Jewish settlement. A settlement of 800 settlers, Jewish settlers. And around them, there's 500 soldiers like me. And there's 300 policemen like my dad at the time. So why do we have to have police and army at the same place? Well, basically, because we have two different kind of people. We have Jewish settlers that although they're outside of the official borders of Israel, they're Israeli citizens. And they're getting all the ports of being in Israeli citizens, like letting the police handle their business, like any one of you. But then just next to them, next house, next door, next street over, there's the Palestinians. And they're of course not citizens of any states. And they are under our rule, under their 18, 19, 20 years old military law. And we are controlling their life. And very fast, I will understand what my job is in Hevon. My job is to make sure that everybody in the city understand who calling the shots. It's us, the army, and the Jewish settlers around us. And very fast during my job, I noticed something I really, I really find it hard to understand I had the power to close a complete city down. I would just have to walk down in the street and scream something like, a corphew and everybody will close their shops and run to their home. You know what corphew is or what the difference between a corphew and a closure? So you know that closure for example is on a city, if the Jewish, the Israeli army, I'm sorry, is performing a closure on a city because there's a Jewish holiday or a Jewish special shabat or a special day in Israel. We just do a closure or a corphew. So a closure is on a city like Gaza or like Romalo or any other city. You close up the city completely or medically. And then nobody can go in and out from the city. But a corphew is something a bit different. A corphew is everyone to his home. When I'm screaming corphew, everybody runs to their home and closing their door until a second notice. Meaning if right now the Israeli army will step outside and scream corphew and we are all here right now, you know, make yourself comfortable because we're stuck together. And it already in the past was, you know, a few days or a few hours or a week or a few months of corphew happening. And very fast in my service, I will start doing corphew. And one shabat I had a weekend, or the special weekend in the Jewish Bible and the Jewish tradition. It's the piece of the Bible when Abraham is buying the petriot tombs in Hevon. So it's a special holiday for the Jewish settlers in Hevon. And there's thousands of settlers from all over the West Bank coming to Hevon to do this weekend. And there's a lot of Israelis, thousands of Israelis coming from Israel to Hevon to doing this weekend. It's a very special weekend. And of course, all the 180,000 Palestinians of the city have to go to corphew. So we're calling the corphew and then we're getting a backup for that weekend alone of another unit. It's a special unit that specializes in terrorism. And in this unit I have a very good friend from back home. And I'm seeing this friend is so funny, you know, it's so nice to meet a friend from back home in the middle of Hevon. And you want to speak, but we never have the chance because I'm doing all the day shifts of making sure that everybody is in their home. A corphew is being down and he's doing all the night shift. So we're just missing each other every time. And the last night of the weekend I'm telling him, okay, tonight when I'm coming back we're going to sit for like five minutes, do I say go to a coffee and you just tell me what's going on at home, what's going on with your girlfriend, saying okay, we promise. And I'm coming back from the day shift and he's just about to leave to the night shift and we don't have any time again. So we're saying, okay, in the morning and my friend is going to the night shift and I'm going to sleep. And after a few hours of sleep, not a lot, I'm being waking up very hardly. And I open my eyes as my friend is leaning over me in the bed. And I'm asking him what's going on? And my friend is just mumbling and I'm looking outside and I see that half of his unit came back already a few hours earlier from the night shift. And his unit is in the base and but they're divided completely. Half of his unit is completely celebrating. They're like going into the kitchen at 4 a.m. to get something to eat and they're sinning. But half of the unit is just going around in the base and they look like they're in shock. They're completely suned. So I'm starting to ask him, my friend, what is going on? What is going on? And my friend is looking at me and saying, well, I think we just killed a little boy. I'm saying, what do you mean you think you just killed a little boy? It's a kind of thing you need to know. And my friend is saying, I'm not sure. We were out there in the middle of the shift and we saw someone. We saw a figure out in the dark and he was holding something. So we just started screaming at him, a corphew and one of the guys just started shooting. So all of us just started shooting. And he just fell and we walked beside him and we noticed it's very small. So we just came back to the base. I had no idea. What do I supposed to do with this information? I was 19, I was a few months in Hevon and I didn't know the answer. So the best thing I could say at that moment was, okay, let's get some sleep. I'll wake up with you early in the morning and we can go together to the house and we'll see what happened and maybe we can apologize. And I was a very naive young soldier because a few hours later, very early before we had a chance to wake up, our officers came into the room and wake all the base up. All the base should be on their feet with their uniform and helmet and grenades and ammunition and M16 getting ready to go out for a mission. Nobody knows what's going on but the two units is getting up and getting ready and leaving the base and start marching with forced light in Hevon into the Abusnena neighborhood of Hevon. And my friend who is in the other unit is looking at me and saying, this is the neighborhood we were last night. And I'm great, the minute we'll finish the mission, I'm going with you to the other house. I promise and we're going into the neighborhood and we're going into a street and my friend is looking at me and saying, this is the street. When we were last night and we're going down the street and we're just stopping in front of a house and we're getting orders to surround the house. And my friend is looking at me and saying, this is the house. We were last night. And we're just standing there around the house for 20 minutes. Don't just stand what's going on. And after 20 minutes we understand there's a funeral of a little boy supposed to come out from the house to the cemetery in Abusnena neighborhood. But there's a corphew. There's a Jewish holiday. Nobody can leave their house. So our mission is to make sure that the funeral cannot go out of the house to the cemetery. And we're just standing there for minutes and minutes on until the father of the little kid is going out outside of his house and screaming at us. And screaming at us in some point is pushing one of the officers away and that really is something you cannot do in Palestine. You cannot push an officer away. So we just did what we do with everyone who doing something he doesn't supposed to do in Palestine. We arrest him. And it's always the same way it doesn't matter if he's 85 years old or he's 80 years old. It's always the same way. We have a little piece of plastic in our weapon and we're just tying him behind his back very tightly. We have a piece of fabric in our weapon just blindfold him and just taking the father and throwing him into the military jeep. And the mother of the kid that was killed, she's seeing that we just arrested her husband. He's getting outside of the house and she starts screaming at us and screaming at us and screaming at us and screaming at us. It was so deep that all of a sudden I understood that I already heard the screaming before. She was screaming exactly like my grandma used to wake us up with every night when I was a kid. And I didn't know a word in Arabic. I didn't understand what she's saying. But I understood everything that she meant in us screaming. And I just couldn't handle our screaming. So I just volunteered to take the father to the base to arrest him. And I just jumped into the jeep and just drove the way. And we got to the base and I just put the father in the entrance of the base like we did with most of the people that we arrested. And I just went back to my bed and put the blanket over my head and trying to make it go away. But it didn't. And it was the first time out of many that I will understand that history is knocking on the door right now. And I'm on the wrong side. All of my life I was waiting to be on the right side but I was on the wrong side all these months. And everything just snapped in my head and I just had to shut myself down. I just shut myself down completely. My father like many times before that will call me and will tell me the idea of spokesman talked about us. That was retrospective after a few days. He will tell me the idea of spokesman Gavin announcement about our unit and He said that our unit managed to kill the terrorists and to arrest another terrorist that tried to help him in his job in this weekend. And my mind was just not there anymore. And I just snap. I closed up my head and continue to do my service day after day after day after day. Continue to do the same thing. I will go into houses in the middle of the night. I will arrest people. I will arrest children sometime under the age of 10 or 8 alone. I will arrest women and elderly people. I will shoot at protesters live ammunition sometimes. Zobber, bullet or tear gas canister. I will do everything that I will be required in the next half a year or six months. I will just do everything like I supposed to. But when I'm starting to come home during the weekends, I understand that I cannot go back to be the same person I was. I just said that you cannot be the same person at home and at soldier at the army. You have to choose and I without no choice that I am a soldier. So I'm going back home and I'm just not myself and I'm literally, literally could not recognize my face in the mirror. My mother is starting to tell me that I became a very violent man to them, to my parents. My girlfriend is breaking up with me and I'm completely on the edge. So I'm deciding to do something I didn't think I would do. I'm taking my phone and calling an old friend from back home. And we don't really like it because it's kind of a lefty friend. It's the leftiest friend of the group and he's coming from a lefty family so nobody really liked this guy. But I'm giving him a call. You know, and the only reason I really have his numbers because it's like really good at basketball. So we keep in touch. So I'm calling my friend and I'm telling him, man, you have to understand what I'm going through. I have to tell you, you're the only one who can listen to me. You're the only one I can think about calling and friends and whoa, whoa, wait there. What's going on? I'm telling him I have to tell you what I saw. And he's saying, okay, go. I'm just starting telling him this story and many else's worst sometimes stories about the last six months. So myself, I'm telling him story by story, by story in some point my friend is saying, whoa, whoa, wait, wait. Okay, stop, stop. Okay, listen. If you're really in such a bad shape, if you're really on the edge, if you really understand what's going down there, would you consider coming with me next Friday when you're living the base to a protest with anarchists against the wall in the village of Berlin and I'm saying whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Anarchist against the wall. Are you crazy? Anarchist, I don't know, what anarchists are? Crazy people. No way I'm out. I'm not going there. And he's saying, Iran, what do you got to lose? And I understand that I really don't have anything to lose at that moment. So I'm saying yes. And the next Friday I can, I'm living the base instead of going back to Jerusalem, I'm going to Tel Aviv, I'm putting my uniform in my civilian bag, I'm putting civilian clothes on me and I find myself on a bus, I'm on a bus, sorry, I'm anarchist against the wall to the village of Berlin. The village of Berlin is a small village in the middle of Palestine that is separation barrier, the separation wall is cutting the village in the middle, taking half of the land, and half of the olive growth to the other side of the wall, just swinging the work and life of decades. And just taking it to the other side of the wall and since 2004 I think the people of Berlin is probably, it's now it's exactly nine years, it was this Friday, the last Friday was exactly nine years to the protest every Friday, nonviolent protest marches against the wall. Against the soldiers, against the occupation, marching to the wall, screaming to the soldier, leave our land, take with you your checkpoints, take with you your wall, and they're marching and I'm getting into Berlin and I am scared, shitless. I am so scared, I was never on a Palestinian ground, surrounded by Palestinians without my M16, my two hand grenades, my six specks of ammunition and my backup, never. Everybody is talking in Arabic around me and the only words I knew in Arabic was to rip down and give me an ID so I couldn't say that. I was really stuck in the middle of the village, very much afraid, and then the marching was starting and back then it was still a fence today that 20 feet conquered wall and they're starting to march into defense and there's some drummers and there's some singing and some signs and we're just marching and I'm marching with them and I'm so scared. Then in the corner of my eye see a few young men rising up in front, some stones in the direction of defense and then immediately, 360 around us, we're surrounding by military army units all around us, the Israeli army is popping up and just out shooting without saying a word, just out shooting into our body and they're shooting rubber bullets and I don't know if you ever know that but rubber bullets are not rubber bullets. They're still bullets with a little rubber around them. I didn't know that I'm not shooting rubber bullets into our body and I was never shot at before, I shot at people before but nobody ever shot at me and I was so afraid that the only thing I can think about saying was just stop shooting, stop shooting, I'm an Israeli soldier. I'm shooting and then one of the anarchists guys looking at me like this saying, I'm an Israeli soldier too, you can stop shooting and then a bunch of Palestinians are coming and saying we are all Israeli soldiers, you can stop shooting. I was not laughing because they didn't stop shooting and then the tear gets started to kick in and I know if you ever got tear gas we tried it a little bit in booth came but was nothing like that day in Berlin. The tear gets started to kick in and tear gas basically just close you up completely, you feel that you cannot breathe, just choke you up, you cannot take air inside and until today I'm not sure if tear gas is working here or it's working here but it's working and you feel that you cannot breathe and my instinct was to try to run away from the gas but just made it worse. So I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to breathe, I'm trying to I'm trying to breathe, you're trying to breathe. We're trying to breathe, you're trying to breathe. Once I am through this road, whether I'm through this road, whether I'm through this road, whether I'm through this road, whether I'm through this road, whether I'm through this road. I knew this is it for me, I knew this is it for me. I will never go back to do the same things again, ever. But then Sunday came and I'm taking up my uniform and I'm taking my gun and I'm going back to Jevoa because this is the only reality we know to be true in Israel. I didn't have any friends who didn't serve at this time. I didn't have any family member I can tell that I don't want to go back. So I'm going back but this time I'm promising myself things will be different and I'm going to go into protest with Anokis against the wall and after a few weeks they met me up in Tel Aviv with doctors without borders. You know doctors without borders? So they met me with the Israeli branch of doctors without borders and I will sit there and they will ask for my help and will explain to me the very specific situation in doctors without borders Israel. They're telling me you know all the Palestinians in the West Bank if they want to get to hospitals or get in medicine get it treatment have to go through checkpoints into Israel proper or through the West Bank they have checkpoints between their land to their land and they have to go through it and if they want to go through the checkpoints they have to have permits from the military humanitarian permits to go to a hospital and all of you of course know that the Israeli army is the most moral army in the world right? So you know the Israeli army is already taking out the permits it does but instead of giving it to the sick Palestinians it's given it to the lawyers of doctors without borders that are resting them every day and then all they need to do is to make sure that they don't let anyone from doctors without borders or representative go through the checkpoints into the West Bank and give these permits into sick hands of Palestinians. And this is how the Israeli army is basically making sure in a legal aspect that is protected from every angle nobody can complain. During this time my mother is dying out of cancer back home in Jerusalem and I'm finding myself the next year and a half sneaking out of my base in the middle of the night with my uniform and my vest and my gun going into houses in the middle of heaven and later on south Marjavon knocking on the door this time I will be as a guest and I will go inside and give people permits to go through checkpoints and medicine and in return I will hear their stories about what it is to live under a military occupation and during this time I meet the Kansas women with breast cancer in Palestine. The number is unknown to anybody because there's nobody taking track but during this time my mother is dying back home and I can see the exact same things going on and my mind just going wider and wider. During this time I'm hearing about a little group called Breaking the Silence. A young group of veteran soldiers, combat soldiers that collecting testimonies from other soldiers across the West Bank and publish it into the Israeli public and international people. That's the truth inside this occupied territories and I decided I want to tell my story, my mother's story, this woman's story and I'm starting to give them stories from inside the army and the day I release from the army I join Breaking the Silence and for the next two and a half years I will become their chief investigator. We'll take testimonies for more than 250 soldiers from the West Bank and Gaza and we'll try to publish it into the Israeli public and abroad and I know that the occupation is that close to be ended with because the people of Israel didn't heard my story yet and after they hear my story the occupation will have to drop right? But a few months go by and nothing change and the testimonies that I'm collecting doesn't do anything and then Operation Kestlet starts. An Operation Kestlet was so bad we sat back at home and tried to understand what's going on but nobody told us what's going on down in Gaza. So I'm finding myself going from Breaking the Silence Office into the border with Gaza and just stand there outside of the border waiting for soldiers to go out of the operation to tell me what was going on inside and after three weeks soldiers are starting to come out from Gaza and some of them, not all of them but some of them will pass through me and will tell me their stories and they were very, very confused. A lot of people think they were very mad or very happy in Operation Kestlet but they weren't. They were very confused because those soldiers was training for years and months to be handling a war and they got the war when they got to Gaza. They saw taintials just bombing everything inside for them. They saw Air Force. The Israeli Air Force just dropped in ton bombs on civilian clearing the path for them to go in. They saw White Force falling from the sky burning, everything it touches along the way but until it was their time to go by foot into Gaza there was no enemy left. Just hundreds of hundreds of dead bodies around them every day of the operation and they came out very confused and in the next three months I will collect testimonies from everyone that I can that serve inside Gaza during this time and put a booklet down of breaking the silence, a booklet of testimonies from Operation Kestlet but before we go out with it to the Israeli public we want to make sure this time we have a good platform so people will listen it's important enough so we're going to the most lefty newspaper in Israel. What is the most lefty newspaper in Israel? Alex, everybody knows Alex all the time, it's weird. So we're turning to Alex and I'm talking with Amos Saleh, the military reporter of Alex and I'm telling him the stories and I'm saying, whoa if this story is true you guys are getting a cover story and he's verifying the stories for two weeks and after two weeks he's saying it's going to come out this Friday and all of us on Friday go out to the station and buy all the outlets we can but there is no cover story and there is no back story or middle story so we're going back to the office and we're calling Alex or the terrorists and saying what happened and they will explain to us basically yesterday we got a phone call from the idea of spokesman and the idea of spokesman gave us two options or you're going to break in the silence or you're going with me but if you're going to break in the silence I'm not working with you anymore and Alex or the tutorial is continue to explain to us and saying you know we don't really have investigated reporters in Gaza or in the West Bank except for maybe a mirror husk so we really rely on the idea of spokesman to give us the truth from these territories and I'm hanging up the phone and I'm flipping through the booklet the Israeli public will not read anymore but then I noticed there's holes in the stories there's a few stories in the booklet are booklet that missing completely and there's a few booklets with holes in the middle of them so I'm going to my boss at the time to hear them saying what is going on there's holes in the story and he said oh that's fine that's fine this is only what the idea of censorship took down I'm saying what? Oh come on don't be naive you know that the every news channel in Israel every TV channel every radio station every blogger on the internet or newspaper have to go through the idea of censorship right? I'm saying no I didn't know that we don't have free press this is amazing but wait wait we're breaking the silence right? we're breaking the silence in Yehuda is looking at me and saying oh yeah we're breaking this silence that the idea of spokes the idea of censorship allows us to break and I understand that my days in the organization is numbered and after a few months I will go out to make a decency and we'll continue to do the same kind of work only by my own I will collect testimonies from soldiers from officers I will collect stories from people outside of the I mean very at the biggest officials inside the military and security industry in Israel collect their stories and get it back instead of breaking the silence to their borders of the times to the Guardian a lot of the story to the Washington Post to BBC I will start to press the send the stories outside and they will publish not fully but a lot of them will publish outside and during this time I'm discovering something pretty amazing the more I go in looking for occupation the more I find money and I don't understand so I'm going deeper and deeper and then in 2010 I'm getting into a very interesting story about how the Israeli government and Israeli army was selling a new tirgas canister into the government of police a Singapore of police and government of Singapore people the selling tirgas canister to fight their protest in their country and during this time I'm looking and I'm saying Israel is selling tirgas so I'm going to into the website of the minister of security in Israel and I find out they saying that is it just concluded a deal with the Singapore government of selling the best tirgas canister ever produced and tried by the Israeli army and it was mentioned there a few lines later that this tirgas canister was proven to be the most deadliest ever and I'm going back and I'm saying wait try the tirgas canister who would be agreed to be trapped and then I understand they're trying the weapons every day not in labs down there on the field they're trying their weapons I was trying their weapons in biline in the aline in foca d'ou minabisala in betlechem in havolon al haline south marchivon in his Jerusalem we're trying the weapons every day and then we're selling it outside and I couldn't believe the things that I'm seeing so I'm going deeper and deeper and then I realized that you remember this guy the young guys at first stones in the beginning of the protest they were not Palestinians they were actually an undercover unit of the Israeli army looking like me Arab Jews disguising as Palestinian inside this villages starting a riot starting something so the Israeli army will have a good excuse to start shooting the place up and testing the weapons and the more I go the more I can understand is this for real how long is it going through how much money are we making I'm going in and in and then I discovered in the last 30 40 years and this is a very very partialist this is the dictatorship's energy the the Israeli government and the Israeli army is trading weapons with trade and knowledge with trading technology or training their soldier by themselves in those countries in the last 40 years we were involved in the worst dictatorships energy in the world and we were making a killing out of it literally you're making so much money out of it and then I understand this is not an occupation it's a laboratory sometimes as a soldier I would infuse poison to Palestinians sometimes as a protester I will run away with Palestinians and being a labrat but all this time we're trying weapons out and selling them out there in the source of everything it's not a religion it's not the land there's a lot a lot of money and I understand that I'm standing in their own place and I'm moving to New York City from Jerusalem it's a big change and I'm standing in New York City and the last three years I'm researching the relationship between our army and your army our government and your government and all the money that flows in the middle now I'm gonna do a cut just for a second and do a different ending the usual we're doing it in the last few pro in the few last lectures and I want to try it now two and a half months ago we were on the Maryland highway on a way to do this kind of lectures in Washington DC and we were on a way we crushed our car in the middle of the Maryland highway we were stuck in the middle of the highway people were driving next to us and we did something we don't really like to do we call the police and the police came very fast very efficient the Maryland officer police came and took us out of the highway tall car came and took mine another friend without car to the lot and I got a ride along with the Maryland officer police and for 10 minutes we're driving silently and I have no idea it's gonna change my life this ride and we're driving quietly and then the guys looking at me the officer of the Maryland police looking me and saying so where are you from? I'm saying oh I'm from I'm from Israel I'm from Israel and the officer is saying oh man you guys are bad asses you know how to silence the one that opposed you you know how to come down nobody this obey you you guys I'm the best and I'm saying whoa whoa whoa I don't think you really know a lot about the Israeli army so you know never mind you're saying oh no no I just came back from there I'm saying what is a tourist I'm saying no with the Maryland police we just came back from training with your military and your police I'm saying what I'm saying oh yeah you know all of our police is here in the US is going to a few weeks to Israel and trained with your army and your police and I'm still starting investigating more and more getting more information out there and then before I leave the house either before I leave the car I'm sorry the is car to the lot I'm thinking is there a chance you know Shlomoi Fatih my father the head of investigation of the Jerusalem police and the guy takes out his cell phone and flipping pictures and he got a picture had with my dad in the middle of the night in Washington DC and I'm just blown away I'm going out of the car and I'm calling my dad in Jerusalem and I'm saying dad what the hell and my dad is telling me oh come on Iranian don't be naive you know NYPD got an office in Tel Aviv right you know we got an office in New York right come on we're working together to protect you and then I understand it wasn't the first time but that was my closure for years we're doing this kind of lectures very different kind of lectures and talking with communities here in the US tell them that all they need to do is take care of their community and it's going to be fine every one of us will take care of our community but you should know that you know what's going on in Palestine is a humanitarian crisis and I'm going to run and I'm telling them I learned something growing up all of us want to be on the right place at the right time when history is knocking on the door and history is knocking right now really loud in Palestine and all of you need to be on the right side on this humanitarian case but not this time if you don't care about Palestinian after this lectures I don't care and if you don't care about us Israel is asking for your help to stop their apartheid regime in Israel I'm fine with that but you guys should know you are next in line the next one will die from a tear gas canister into his chest will be in Zucari Park will be in Denver will be in Auckland in San Francisco it is happening here already it's happening to different people to people of color to immigrants in this country it's already happening you guys are next in line the next one will die out of brutality of the police will be one of your sons or your daughters in a protest because they're training together your police training with our army our army is training them how to take care of the enemy because Palestinians are our enemy but when they're coming back you are their enemy all this time when we are taking care of our communities I was taking care of mine and you were trying to take care of yours they the government the police they were organizing together globally to oppress us we need to start organizing globally to resist them and that start in Palestine right now stop in the training there will stop it here this is why I joined in 2005 the civil society call of the Palestinian for Boycott Ivesman and Sanction on the set of Israel taking it out from the source non-violently from the money taking the money out of the equation how many life can we save everybody know their brothers should stop the question is how fast and how many people is gonna die there and here until it will happen we need to start organizing globally to resist them I hope you'll join us to the call of BDS and thank you very much for your time thank you