IDF Soldiers Speak at UC-Irvine

Last night, I attended a presentation by two young Israeli Defense Forces soldiers, one female, the other male. They spoke in front of an audience of about 40 people. Their visit was sponsored by Stand With Us, an Israel education organization and Anteaters for Israel, a UCI group that supports Israel.

The first speaker was a young female, who joined the IDF as a medic when she was 18 (a few years ago). She told of a couple of her experiences as a medic. I would like to relate one.

Shortly after entering service at 18, she was called to treat a wounded Palestinian terror suspect. She was the only medic available. When she asked his name, she realized that he was the brother of a woman who had blown herself up in a restaurant, killing 21 civilians including several children, the youngest being 14 months ago.  It was this wounded suspect who had allegedly sent his sister on this mission. The young soldier described her mental anguish in treating this prisoner. Yet, she did it to the best of her ability because under the code of moral conduct of the Israeli forces, her duty was clear.

The second soldier, a young man, described the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah on the Israel/Lebanon border. After a group of Israeli soldiers had been attacked and killed by Hezbollah fighters and two soldiers kidnapped and taken into Lebanon, he was part of a force attempting to rescue the two soldiers. (They failed. After the conflict ended the soldiers' bodies were returned dead and bearing signs of severe torture.)

At one point, he described sighting Hezbollah fighters with a vehicle on which was mounted a rocket launcher. As he was calling in for an air strike, he was overruled over the radio by a superior officer who stated that the location carried too much risk of killing innocent non-combatants. The teaching point? The IDF operates under a set of rules under the concept of civilized warfare (which its enemy does not.)

Among the audience there was a a handful of Muslim students. They sat quietly listening and did not interrupt or disrupt the presentation. During the Q&A, some of them asked critical questions, but in a polite manner. One described the shooting death of an 11-year-old Palestinian girl who had approached a military check point and was shot dead when she failed to obey orders to stop. According to the student's account, an IDF soldier walked up to her as she was on the ground and fired several more bullets into her. The two Israelis were aware of the incident in general terms, but took issue with the cold-hearted description of the shooting pointing out that suicide bombers had been used in just such a manner. It was the male soldier, however, who pointed out a critical point; the incident was (or had been) investigated and that the IDF had a judicial system which governed their conduct in combat.

After the presentation, the Muslim students stayed to continue the conversation in a calm manner with the male soldier as well as some Jewish members of the audience. That was the situation as I left.

Unfortunately, the soldiers had a less respectful reception earlier that day at Cal State Fullerton, where one member of the audience called the soldiers "Fascist SOB's and stormed out of the room." (No, it wasn't Whoopi Goldberg or Joy Behar.)

Something else caught my attention. The female soldier mentioned "One New Heart", a charitable activity that is linked on my blog. This program involves a Christian American couple living in Israel who organize surgical procedures for Palestinian and other Arab children who suffer from heart defects. Under this program, these children, along with their parents, are transported to an Israeli hospital, where remedial operations are done for free to the patient's family using volunteer Israeli doctors. (I have written in detail about this before and have communicated by phone and e-mail with the organizer, Hank Danniker.)

Last comment: A compliment to the Muslim students who attended the event and made their views in a respectful manner. That's the way to do it.