Israel's female IDF soldiers on combat

Tamar Yarom, 2007; Sheldon S., Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Having the power to kill Arabs in the Israeli Army (IDF) is intoxicating and it ruined our lives.

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Israeli female soldiers give shocking testimonies about the Israeli Army 

(wocomoHUMANITY) March 1, 2023: ISRAEL - This is a personal account of female soldiers about their life in the Israeli Army, the only military in the world to forcibly draw females for mandatory military service.

It is a female point of view on the drama of an unending war, on the moral challenges they faced at the killing and extermination of the Palestinian population.

It's cool to shoot fish in a barrel after we bomb them!

Questions that were not dealt with during their deadly deployments are raised afterwards with great pain and courage. The young women look back critically at the way they handled the immense power that was placed in their hands at the young age of 18.

Did they really smile in the pictures? In 1988 the filmmaker herself was a militant in the IDF (the euphemistic Israeli Defense Force of its Department of War) in the land where Palestinians are concentrated and killed, called the Occupied Territories.

"How could I ever think I'd forget?" is what one of the young killers asks herself at the end of this film.

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Their names are Meytal, Rotem, Inbar, Dana, Tal, Libi, and they have one thing in common, having served the Israeli Defense Forces.

I can't believe my eyes. I'd better get my gun.

In Israel, national military service is mandatory for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18, male and female. Through the different stories of these women, the documentary raises the question of the place of women in the army, a world historically of men, but also and more broadly the question of a group militarily oppressing another. What can humans resort to to assert themselves and deprive others of land?

These young women at 18 years old discover a world completely different from their daily life in the ultra-secure police state they have helped build that is Israel.

First of all, entering the military instinctively leads them to erase their femininity and copy the behavior of testosterone-poisoned males.

Furthermore, joining the army also leads them to participate in a group terror, collective punishment and other war crimes according to international law, torture, maiming, and murder, based on their wanting to belong to Israel.

Some of them will commit atrocities during this endless "conflict" with Palestine, which they would certainly never have thought of being able to perpetrate.

Am I being used as propaganda for the IDF?

In fact, for some of them, the pride of "serving" their side and doing "good" will soon give way to a feeling of disillusionment, PTSD, and anxious fear when faced with the reality of the horrors of war.

With impressive candor they talk about what they saw and what they did, the way they tried to make sense of this "other world," and how they tried to reconcile their experiences with the self they were familiar with when not wearing an army uniform.

This documentary does not seek to excuse or justify their atrocities or the criminal acts they committed in the West Bank (one of two Palestinian concentration camps) during this period since the first Palestinian Uprising.

To See if I’m Smiling powerfully explores the way gender, ethics, personal power, and moral irresponsibility interact in times of war.

It’s a rare tapestry of women’s testimonies that leaves us to ponder some of the most burning questions of our times.

It is not only a story about women in the Israeli Army and the Israeli-Palestinian turmoil they contributed to, but a universal story about war and its atrocities and what it does to people.

Original title: To See if I'm Smiling, A film by Tamar Yarom, A Tamar Yarom Production © 2007. Licensed by First Hand Films #documentary #israel #army #women #palestine