J Street U Northwestern hosted two Israel Defense Forces veterans from the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence in a Tuesday speaker event. In their talk, the veterans called for an end to Israel’s presence in Palestine.
Breaking the Silence Jewish Diaspora Educational Coordinator Luiz Aberbuj and Education Director Tal Sagi spoke about their experiences serving in the Israeli military and how it led them to call for an end to Israeli presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Breaking the Silence, established in 2004, is an Israeli organization providing IDF military veterans an opportunity to share their testimonies of life in the region. The group has collected accounts from more than 1,400 soldiers, many of whom operated in multiple units in the territory.
“What we’re trying to do today is to shed light on the reality of the occupation, what it actually means, what it looks like on the ground,” Sagi said. “Our main goal is to end occupation, and we believe that the first step should be that people will talk about it and will understand what it means.”
Their talk comes as Israel’s continued ground and air offensive in Gaza has killed more than 30,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities. The military campaign follows the militant group Hamas’ deadly attack in Israel on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza following a 1967 war. Now, Israel still occupies the West Bank, but it withdrew from Gaza — which is now controlled by Hamas — in 2005, according to BBC. Still, Israeli settlements in the region impact daily life for Palestinians.
Sagi grew up in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank which was surrounded by Palestinian villages. She said whenever people brought up the fact that she lived in a settlement, she did not understand what they meant.
When Sagi began her service in Hebron, a city in the northern West Bank, in 2012, she gave tours of the city to other soldiers. During that time, her understanding of the impact of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lives changed, she said.
“I had no idea what occupation meant,” Sagi said. “I had no idea we were under different policies.”
Aberbuj grew up in a Jewish community in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He served in both the West Bank and Gaza between 2014 and 2016.
As the first member in his family to join the IDF, he quickly felt like his goal to protect his country through military service fell short.
“During my service, I started to ask a lot of questions about what we’re doing: ‘How does this bring security to Israel?’ ‘How does it help in any way?’” he said.
J Street U Northwestern President and Weinberg senior Max Feinleib said he found the event eye-opening.
As an American, Feinleib said he did not have any understanding of the nature of the Israeli presence in Palestine.
“I can see something on Instagram and it won’t necessarily tell the whole story, right?” he said.
Feinleib said speaker events like Tuesday’s allow him to hear people’s narratives through a variety of perspectives.
Aberbuj and Sagi now work as a pair with other members of Breaking the Silence through educational meetings and speaker events.
A partnership between J Street U and Breaking the Silence will bring Aberbuj and Sagi to a total of eight universities, including NU, the University of Michigan, Duke University and Princeton University, over this and next week to host similar dialogues with students.
Email: [email protected]
X: @Jerrwu
Related Stories:
— Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks at NU Israel Innovation Project webinar
— UCLA Prof. Nour Joudah speaks on generational survival of Palestinians for MENA speaker series
