Les troubles de Tsahal

Amy Goodman, de Democracy Now !, interrogeait hier plusieurs officiers de réserve israéliens contestataires sur les conditions actuelles au sein de Tsahal, justement du point de vue de cette contestation. Nous donnons ici des extraits de la très intéressante conversation que Goodman a eue avec Dan Tamir, officier de réserve du renseignement, et Yonathan Shapira, ancien capitaine dans la Force Aérienne.

L’un des deux hommes (Shapira) a également été interviewé pour un récent article du Guardian (mentionné dans l’interview), dont nous avons rendu compte. L’intérêt ici est que les détails sont encore plus nombreux, sur la forme de la contestation, le comportement des pilotes, la façon assez confuse qui caractérise le travail du renseignement, etc. Ces détails nous aident à mieux comprendre les déboires actuels de Tsahal. Nous sommes loin de cette armée pleine d’ardeur et de confiance en elle qui gagna d’une si magistrale façon les guerres de 1956, de 1967 et de 1973.

AMY GOODMAN: It is very good to have you with us. You're an intelligence officer with the Israeli Defense Force reserves. Are you going to serve in this war with Lebanon?

DAN TAMIR: Until now, I have not been called personally to take part in this war, and I hope I won't be called personally, but there are many other officers and soldiers who were called to this war and, as Yonatan said before, many have said that they are not going to take part in what they see is an unnecessary bloodshed.

AMY GOODMAN: What would it mean if you refused?

DAN TAMIR: Well, I have already twice told my commanders that I’m not willing to carry out such mobilization orders. The first time was in 2001, and the second time in 2004. That time, it was considering going into military regime at the Occupied Territories in Judea and Samaria. Personally, I refused twice, and I was sent twice to jail for one month every time, although it doesn't have to be like this. Some people just say, “We are not going,” and their commanders just let them go. I must emphasize maybe that going to jail is not some kind of an aim for itself. Some people are sent to jail, but many others are being just dismissed. This is why the actual number of refuseniks, of people who refuse to take actions, is actually much higher than the number of people actually sitting in jail.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?

DAN TAMIR: I mean that there are many people, many soldiers and officers, who say, “We are not going,” and since the Israeli military is the — how should I put it? — doesn’t have the strongest disciplines, many people are just being dismissed by their officers telling them, “Okay, don't come this year. We'll call you in a few months,” just in order not to make such a big fuss out of this whole issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to go to jail again?

DAN TAMIR: If I would be again given any kind of an order to do things I find illegal, immoral and useless, I would rather go to jail, rather than do such things, which are contradicting the basic interest of the state of Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have an estimate of the numbers of soldiers or people in the reserves who are saying no?

DAN TAMIR: Well, I can give you a few fixed numbers. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, that means in the last five years, we had at least 160 people who were refusing and were sent to jail. We know about many others who declared their refusal but were not sent to any kind of incarceration or imprisonment. And we assume there are many, many others who found all kinds of excuses, beginning with physical problems, medical problems and ending with psychological problems or any kind of other excuses, not to go into military service. So, I estimate it in the few thousands, maybe even more.

(…)

AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira, you are a former captain in the Israeli Air Force reserves, your brother now in jail, jailed this week. There's an article in the New York Times today, a very sweeping article, headlined “Left or Right, Israelis are Pro-War.” Your response.

YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yes, first of all, it's very sad that indeed the majority of Israelis are now supporting the war. I think there are many reasons for that. Probably people are in some condition of being fear-stricken by the institutions. They don't get all the information. The media here is very, very biased. They don't see what you can see in the Amy Goodman show in New York, many thousands of kilometers from the Middle East. They see mostly what the Israeli military propaganda and the Israeli government wants them to see, and it's very sad, and I think this is part of the reason that we see this kind of support.

But it's important for me to say that, for example, last Saturday, we were 10,000 people in the center of Tel Aviv, demonstrating together, Jews and Arabs together, shouting that we refuse to be enemies. And we are going to do another demonstration next Saturday in front of the jail, where my brother and his friends are sitting, and I’m inviting all the international media to see what these people and the resistance in Israel to this war is doing. I can tell you some facts and some things that happened also within the Air Force, if you are interested.

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah. I just spoke to some friends in the Air Force, an F-15 pilot, and he told me an interesting thing. He told me that since the third day of this war, they are waiting for Bush to stop the war. They also understand that they are playing some kind of role in this whole big war of interests between major forces, not just Israel and not just Hezbollah.

Also he tells me that they are not counting anymore on intelligence. Sometimes they see — you know, they get the coordinates, and they see a house in their target, and they prefer to shoot beside the house, because they don't know. Maybe there are civilians, maybe there are innocent people sleeping there. Sometimes this intelligence are being based on the fact that Israel told those civilians to evacuate their villages, and then afterwards, they just tell the pilots to bomb some houses then. And I know that more and more pilots are feeling very, very uncomfortable with this situation. And we are waiting for the first pilot to refuse to do these crimes and to help us, Israelis and Arabs in this region, to stop this crazy war.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Yonatan Shapira, this is very significant, what the Guardian newspaper was talking about and also quoting you about this: at least two Israeli fighter pilots deliberately missing bombing targets in Lebanon, because they were concerned they were being ordered to bomb civilians.

YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah, I know that — I guess there are several of them. I spoke with one of them, who told me especially of one case that he just got a target — it was a house on a hill — and he just didn't want to shoot at the house, and he shot beside the house, and later on, the commanders told him that it’s okay. And my question is, you know, if they can give pilots a target, and later on when the pilot is not shooting the house and telling him that it's okay, you know, what is all this idea behind those missions, if, you know, you can shoot the house, you can not shoot the house? I think there is a problem, you know, spilling behind all these missions that these pilots are getting.

And just so you know, as pilot, I’m not a fighter pilot. I was a helicopter pilot, and I didn't shoot anyone, but I know, just like most of the people can understand, a fighter pilot is flying up in the sky, thousands of feet above the ground. He cannot see people. He cannot see -- he can maybe see some dots, something on the screen inside the cockpit, but he cannot know whether there are civilians or enemies, or, you know, that the truck is bringing missiles or bringing kids. And if now we see that pilots cannot trust the system, I think it's a sign that maybe, maybe in the near future, some of them will speak out, not just quietly and continue to serve, but to speak out to the world to help us to stop this war.

Mis en ligne le 10 août 2006 à 08H31