Original link in Hebrew: https://politicallycorret.co.il/mmm/
The publication, Political Reader, dubs itself as “the only feminist media outlet in Israel”
The site includes other testimonies as well.
Published 3 March 2024.
M returned from Gaza to tell
M., 35 years old, married and father of three from Moshav in the north, took a break from active reserve service in the last four years. On the seventh of October, he put on a uniform and drove south. In his normal life, M deals with healthy sexuality education, a profession he came to as a result of a workshop I gave at a school where he taught. After that, he decided to work with young people on the prevention of violence, healthy relationships and the dismantling of repressive traditional masculinity. Also towards men. I thought to myself that those who have adopted feminist glasses to look at reality, and those who are allies in the fight against violence against women and in favor of gender equality, will surely have insights and thoughts about the war in Gaza, about masculinity, “brotherhood of fighters” and the reserve service he just finished. I picked up the phone and we met to talk. This is his story.
“From the first moment it was clear that we were thrown into something from which there was no way back. There was an understanding that this was not an ordinary reserve. We knew nothing. From what I know, there is a situation where there are terrorists on the way to Route 6. And that’s it, and we left. As we are. And we mobilized. The sore points in my life.
I felt foreign, I felt different. I felt that I loved my friends, but that I didn’t want to speak their language. That I am supposed to express some aggressiveness – and when I express it, I am scared of myself and also understand its roots. There was a huge conflict within me. Everyone who was around me, their motivation, the reason to get up in the morning, was revenge and I inside myself felt that this is a motivation that kills you and I, for my children, want to return. what does it want I’m not ready for my children to grow up without a father on the altar of this thing. In the account you do with yourself, I started thinking about my children growing up without a father, about my wife living life without me. No. Not willing to pay that price.
This contract, which you signed at the age of 18, the terms of your life have changed, but you are still bound by it. It took me a long time to understand what was happening to me. I told myself that when the time comes that I have to take my things and go, I will go, but as long as I am in conflict, I will not move.”
https://politicallycorret.co.il/ron/embed/#?secret=SpK20zWjPV#?secret=CLln1UibnO
aggressions of revenge
“When I was twenty years old, as a commander, I would check the way the soldiers handcuffed prisoners. I would tell them, ‘If you press the handcuffs hard in revenge for what you think they did, then you are not operational.’ I didn’t mind standing by, receiving criticism. I was a good and beloved commander. In this war, I discovered that I don’t have those powers. I saw Palestinians being taken into the trunk of a Hummer and soldiers beating them to death. I saw soldiers venting their rage on Palestinian property without any need. And I look from the side and say to myself, ‘Fuck, what am I doing here? ? Why don’t I hug my children? And why don’t I revolt at what I see?’
This thing, it’s blatant violence and so visible and you have no ability to withstand the burst. It shook me and I agonize over it, that I didn’t rebel. I gave up. that I felt it was lost. It finishes me. That I see this thing in front of my eyes and cannot find the strength to say anything about it. And in this unrestrained violence, all of which is motivated by revenge, the brigade commander was in first place. He is known as “the Tiktok General”. He endangered us at every moment in this war, without any operational need. And his lieutenant, his hobby inside Gaza was to enter houses and burn them. Just for fun. And on the way he burned a lot of intelligence material. And he had no way of knowing Whether or not there are hostages in some shaft below, or in the attic. He entered a house and set it on fire. He didn’t know if there were forces in the area that could be harmed, if there were explosives that could explode. Just a daily risk of human life at the most childish level possible. Just.”
https://politicallycorret.co.il/ahmad-mustafa/embed/#?secret=DUIZCIFSPR#?secret=eLhGjdqkim
Fear, loathing and helplessness
“In front of all these aggressions was the commander of the Pelsar. An educator, an amazing man. I think this war took something from him that he will have a hard time getting back. He was really poor, he was boycotted by his soldiers, they didn’t trust him. He saw all the things that were being done and had no way to respond to them. It was a very untreated, untreated and very difficult situation.
What makes you, as a commander, popular in a toxic environment? What makes people trust you? Not the same things that make them trust you in a non-toxic, non-horror environment. Where we were, if you don’t take part in the very extreme, political, toxic discourse, you lose popularity. I saw people around me fading away, fading into a muted, paralyzed and hard place.
There were a lot of non-operational events around us, a lot of dangerous events. The culmination of this was an encounter that to this day we do not know what happened in it. Someone threw a grenade, it is not clear in response to why. Dozens of shrapnel entered the stomach of our team commander and the leg of the Negevist. I did not know in the IDF that you shoot without knowing what you are shooting at. I do not know in the IDF that you throw a grenade when you do not know what and where. People shoot to shoot and then shout “proper shooting”. There is nothing wrong with that.”
What do you think motivated them?
“Fear. Crazy tension and full of fear. But if you don’t separate the fear from the revenge, people start thinking “What am I going to return from Gaza without having marked an X on the weapon?”. In the days of the ceasefire, there was a lot of uncontrolled shooting. Bunches of Mag. know what hit and what didn’t. On the one hand, it’s clear to me that we’re not committing genocide, that’s not the story. On the other hand, those 25-year-old boys, scared, sitting on some balcony, in some attic, and there’s a ceasefire, telling them not to shoot, unless you see a weapon . So they shoot out of fear. And if they hit, then they become heroes. These are the rules of the format.”
https://politicallycorret.co.il/hatufim-3/embed/#?secret=id0C96CjbX#?secret=gqfgvMTAqT
If I hear you speak fear
“One time we went to refuel a car and there was a cute guy with us who was half having an anxiety attack. He talked about the fact that he had promised his parents that he was coming back, that he was scared to death and that he didn’t know what to do. Then the guy who was with us, a brother who is now dead, a mighty warrior, came in: If I hear you talk about your fear one more time, I will fuck you. And if you really feel that way, then get out of here because you’re weakening everyone by saying that.” It was a crazy moment. Not only that boy heard it, everyone heard it. I thought to myself, ‘What a scene. Bullying isn’t just in the fourth grade. ‘ But also at the age of 35. If you say what you feel, I will fuck you.’
That bully fighter, who was with me in the team and led a clear line of revenge, without any respect for other perceptions, said that on a solid cliff he slapped his friend in the face who was having an anxiety attack. And I thought how many masses of Israeli fighters experience something on the anxiety continuum and get violence as a response. I remembered a situation from the beginning of the war, when I went to repair a weapon of one of the soldiers and saw that there was ‘red paint’ in the cylinder. I realized that my children were with my sister and that my wife was so far away from me and I completely collapsed. I cried my life out in the corner of some armory. Well, I shed tears there. I’m done I was there alone. I finished crying, wiped myself and came back. No one knows. If that guy saw me going through that, he’d slap me. It would bring out a very hard violence in me.
Later I caught the same guy who was anxious for a chat. I told him “Brother, your parents don’t sleep at night. Go home. What happened?” When I told him this, I began to question myself as well. what are you doing here? You can be one of the fathers rocking the child in the swing right now. I felt that I betrayed myself. I know I’m not a fighter. This thing of dying or taking life has not been my story for many years. And I told this guy what I needed to be told.”
https://politicallycorret.co.il/samer/embed/#?secret=M2kvEgsZ0Q#?secret=TBtIkrvwQI
My children
“There is a norm in the army to leave the children and go. You can say, ‘I haven’t seen my children for a month. I don’t know if I’ll see them again’. And that’s normal. Everyone is just fine with it. Me, my skin is torn. I have to. It’s a motherly emotion” “. Yes, I know the men are going out to defend the house and dad is strong and has a gun, but I’m torn. And I couldn’t find anywhere in this environment where I could say “Fuck bro I can’t. I want to be with my children.”
One day the company commander got really angry with us. He asked “Why are you so homesick?”. Home stress. stressed out??? It’s the concept of a 19-year-old kid rushing home to have a beer with his friends. I’m not stressed out, it’s existential. I have a continuation of my organs somewhere up north and I have to go to them. At that moment I realized that I am currently on the list of people that it is okay for them to die and between myself, I tell you honestly, I don’t mind dying but I am not ready to accept that my children will be knocked out by life. And it’s a dissonance that I haven’t been able to bridge. to normalize myself. Twice I went home altogether and each time I looked at my kids sleeping and said to myself ‘I’m stuck. Can’t go back there, can’t stay here. can’t die can’t live Can’t talk to the guys, can’t keep quiet’.
https://politicallycorret.co.il/zaka-al-madim/embed/#?secret=OzH48bY3Oe#?secret=1QzGVp7QFG
To see a man lose it
“I found myself dealing with things I hadn’t dealt with before, like making fun of the person I am. People can say things to me like, “You’re a boy who’s a girl,” or worse, “Your speech weakens our ability to win,” and they mean speech that raises doubt, caution or emotion.
At the beginning of the war, in the first days, we were in a tsunami of death. It was everywhere. It was in heaps, beyond all proportion. None of us planned to see anything like this. It was awful. Our officer, the crew chief, basically lost it. I saw it right in front of my eyes. We were on a night mission, we saw hundreds of bodies, everywhere. I saw that he was not sleeping, that he was stressed, sweating. I was close to him and then he said to me, “They are on their way to Jerusalem now, aren’t they?” I asked him, “Who?”, “Hamas, Noh’ba, on the way to Jerusalem.” I told him “no”. And he continued: “My wife and children are in Jerusalem.” I told him “Yes, they are safe. You are here. Hamas is there. And they are not on their way to Jerusalem.” “Oh ok”.
I told him to put his head down and he didn’t succeed. He fell on his face. Shot in the air inside the base…totally lost it. When we saw it, immediately the guys do a boyish action: when something is insanely real, you run away to cynicism. Let’s have black humor. Jet Black. I looked at them and was shocked. How do we not stop? The man lost it before our eyes. I asked to be seen as a soldier, but after I left the reserves for four years, my status weakened and no one responded to my call. They told me “come on, let us go”. I saw how we were all on a slippery slope of emotional deterioration.
https://politicallycorret.co.il/ziadne/embed/#?secret=fjW1L64QMW#?secret=Q7dke6U12Q
Well, revenge.
“There is something about how we fell into this war that changes you forever. You are in Gaza and there is a drone above you and the drone can drop an RPG warhead on you. And all around you, rivers of blood. Massacre. There were days when I couldn’t help myself and I read testimonies about the swearing in October and the sexual abuse and I said to myself ‘ Good, revenge. Poor thing, I dared him to fall into my hands.’ When the images come back to you and you see the extent of the destruction and damage, it’s a voice that comes up in you. With what I’ve seen, I didn’t believe that humans were capable of such a thing. It doesn’t make me a hateful person, but I don’t Being able to see “peace” and it breaks my heart. It connects to fateful questions, for example, will it be possible to live here? The soul absorbs violence and this violence is not going anywhere. We have received a critical mass of violence and this is something we go with.
There is a war, it is a war of existence. I go and fight. And I think there is something amazing in being able to recognize that there is a war but not stop believing. We are in a tragic situation, we did not want to get to it and I think that if the men in the reserves had a slightly wider emotional range, they would also be better soldiers, more regulated. The question I was left with is how one can learn to notice the tragedies of the situation, to be less binary. Not to stay in “winners or losers”, but understand that it just hurts. Understand that we are broken. Why don’t we break? How come we can’t face the pain? How do we stay only in the anger?”
https://politicallycorret.co.il/bar-nova/embed/#?secret=tv425jc5im#?secret=1Tq8qwnRFQ
The layer of immunity is crumbling
“During the war, I couldn’t talk to my wife. I didn’t have words either. I really avoided… I couldn’t find anything to say and there were booms on the phone all the time in the background and the children got scared and started asking what was going on. When I went home, refreshed, it was worse than being in Gaza. This thing of going home and finding my life there, normative, of a man who simply lives his life, it’s hard to bear, it’s a very sharp transition. And it also pains me to realize that this is the model my children see. My son draws battle pictures and “Dad, I drew you defeating Hamas “. It is not resolved for me. I am in a state of tension that obscures my consciousness. I have no doubt that it is related to the construction of masculinity, that it is related to my father, to days of remembrance, to very deep layers of paving.”
“When I was released after two months, my wife looked me in the eye and said “Listen Bobby, you are the love of my life. If you put on a uniform again and return to Gaza, I’m not married to you anymore. I take the children. I can’t live like this. I can’t be afraid one more night.” He was harsh. But it’s clear to me that I’m hers. I’m much more hers than this story. It’s not a dilemma at all.”
Why were you actually released after two months?
“After the incident with the thrown grenade, it was clear that our team could not continue to function. We reached a very large social explosion, at the heart of which was me and the guy whose brother was killed. At the height of the fight, I said to him something like ‘I let you lead the tone for a long time, but now people might die Just like that. You don’t silence anyone anymore, it’s over. You step aside, you form your weapon. We fight carefully from now on, because I intend to return to my children.’ He of course came back at me and said something like ‘Who are you anyway, zero?’ quarrel. And many of my friends choose his side and this surprised me and made me feel very alone. After this incident I told my friends that I had enough and that I was looking for another place to make reserves. I realized that with this general and this general, I could just die for nothing . Not because of a battle over Barry, but because someone is an idiot. So I sat with the company commander who immediately understood me and said, ‘Find another place, maybe I’ll do it later too.’ He also suggested that I go to therapy, not to stay with it alone.
https://politicallycorret.co.il/el-bath/embed/#?secret=9U7ggTdf9r#?secret=ONokdgRPL4
“My friends are between angry with me and disappointed. They are not on good terms with me. We have changed. We were a group that meets and makes a fire and sits until sunrise, talking. Now the conversations are broken… the relationship has gone through something heavier. We are different now.
“I realized that there are things in the army that I have to process. My biggest trauma from the army, in general, is the training. This thing, of not being the owner of your body and the experience of the betrayal of your soul, when I hear my inner command telling me ‘this is not who you are’ and I It still goes, it’s something that hurts. It’s an experience of betrayal within yourself. You betray yourself and you don’t forgive yourself. When I would come home from the internship, after the whole week I function like an animal, making jokes with the guys, at home I would lock myself in the room, my mother was She would ask me what happened and I would answer her, ‘I have no soul. I am done.’ More hurtful for me. There is a situation where as you expand your emotional range, your resilience increases, but you also have a layer of immunity crumbling and this does not serve you when you are in a tight heart, with a group of people who, in your mind, are a kind of comfort.
“I find myself in bouts of sadness. I sit on the couch for an hour, sad. My wife is also still recovering from two crazy months of fear and worry and the children… we are recovering, but we’re going through it together. My mind did a clever thing and copied the intensity of the war into life, to escape from the war. I burdened myself with tons of work. I don’t have a spare moment and it’s terrible and terrible. I need to find the way to count, cancel things, take care of myself, but I don’t have those powers. It’s unbelievable how similar this thing is to war. This thing of To justify your existence by doing and to escape from yourself while doing… My wife tells me, ‘You’re not in the reserves, but you’re not here either.’ With that, then I’ll go back to the office.” It’s crazy.
https://politicallycorret.co.il/neshek-haluka/embed/#?secret=HareCuZd1n#?secret=a4X7mfZUNi
mom and dad
“My father was a lieutenant colonel and a man of the security system. A general, a beast. An impressive man by God, but be different from me in these contexts. I sometimes tease him, asking him, ‘Dad, are you with your friends from the Yom Kippur War, did you sit down to make a translation?’ He tells me ‘will you stop screwing my mind?’ This is my father. He is a special story. My mother repressed it. While I was in the war she sank into meditations of this moment ‘I know nothing will happen to him and he will come back’. It’s a crazy suppression mechanism.
I felt that in the relationship with my parents there is a very fast gallop to routine and also because there is my wife and children so they move to the side. But I wanted my mother to hug me, I thought ‘Mom, leave my wife and children for a second, I was afraid for us’. My wife is a reservist, but where are the parents? And when you come back, everyone should be euphoric that you’re back, but that euphoria meets huge points of pain and sorrow, yours. And you fail to deliver the goods. When I came back we did a family weekend. I felt alien and disconnected. I only felt peace when I sat with heartbroken people. When I sat with people who were euphoric about my coming back, I was like a fish out of water.
I’m still cooking with the stuff. I don’t regulate. I speak myself intuitively, not as coherently as I used to. Since the war I feel a lack of control, a lack of direction. I used to be terribly organized and now I don’t know where to start and how to finish. I feel like I’ve told you a lot, I hope my words will validate the experiences of other reservists. I know that getting words for your experiences saves the soul. For example – on the seventh of October we were scared, surprised, kidnapped, failed and did not function as we would have liked. Where is the leader who will come and say “Your heart is broken? Mine too. Where have we come, what madness…” Validation. There is no validity. It sets us free.”