Israeli women featured in a documentary “To See If I’m Smiling” recounted harsh experiences they faced with their compulsory military service. The movie explores the darker side of Israel’s 40-year occupation of Palestinian territories.
Six Israeli women joined the military with hope, but the women had to endure many things that still haunts them. All the women except one were conscript soldiers in the Palestinian territories during the uprising of 2000. The documentary “To See If I’m Smiling” talks about their experiences, and how conflict impacted young Israeli men and women.
Initially, the women remained silent, but in the documentary they
spoke about their bad experiences, including ways in which they coped with military machismo and guilty feelings about what they witnessed.
Tamar Yarom, the director said to Reuters:
"It's easy to finish your military service and push it to the back of your mind….But these girls are telling their personal stories -- which are not always very nice -- to show people what is going on."
One solider wanted to save lives as a paramedic, but instead ended up scrubbing Palestinian corpses to hide signs of abuse by Israeli soldiers. In one of the scenes in this documentary, she looks at the photo of her and the dead man and, as Reuters reports, she says:
"How in hell did I think I'd ever be able to forget?"
Israel is one of the few countries in the world that enforces military service for women. The female soldiers are, however, kept off the front line.
Yarom wants to highlight the fragility state in young women when they are forced into violence during their two-year compulsory army stint.
Yarom said to Reuters:
"You expect women to be more sensitive to suffering and more empathetic to the other side. But the strength of the film is how it shows what happens to human beings in such a warped situation, and how women are not immune,"
Yarom hopes the documentary will put an end to violence and bring peace in the region. She said:
"This country is in a coma. With all the bombs and attacks, we are numb,"
Yarom said many people are not criticizing the war because they feel they are in a war of survival, and the soldiers are protecting them. It wouldn’t be nice to criticize the protectors.
Israel’s army responded to these claims and said some violations took place, but they have reduced considerably. All its soldiers are forced to follow strict ethical codes, so there will be fewer violations in the future.
The documentary film will be televised this weekend and Yarom expects criticism from both sides of the party in Israel.
Yarom made this film based on her own experience in the 80s when she saw a Palestinian man tortured in front of her and she was unable to say anything. She still remembers it vividly, as the man slumped helplessly in a generator with blood streaming from his face.
I hope this film promotes debate and brings about peace in the region. This shows not every Israeli is against peace in the region, and I would bet there are many like Yarom who want to help.
I hope their voices are heard and the Israel and Palestinians live beside each other peacefully instead of trying to destroy each other as the only solution.
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