Killing Dilemma
Narrator: N
Director: Q
Subtitles: S
Title: TITLE=…
TC: first shot = 00.00.00.
00.00.11 TITLE= Assignment: forced to choose - Israel’s fighter pilots
00.00.20 TITLE= Yigal, Alon, Roni. Fighter pilots. They share their love for flight. They share their pride in Israel.
00.01.56 Q: Try to go back in your memory. Was there a moment you can recall you hated yourself? 00.02.02
00.02.03
Roni
No. I think I.. I always think about those things. Usually I think about it after the flight. Or before the flight sometimes, but I never hate myself, because I know that the man I am in the aircraft, is the man I am on the ground. 00.02.27
00.02.31 S: I can see it.
-They’ve arrived at the vehicle.
The vehicle is starting to move.
It’s escaping in an easterly direction. 00.02.47
00.03.02
Brigadier General Nehoestan
It’s okay to question. I don’t call to refuse. This is not my message, my message is to take responsibility. We are personally responsible. 00.03.13
00.03.19 TITLE = December 2002. Yigal Shochat is the first former fighter pilot that publicly questions assignments of the Israeli Air Force. 00.03.35
00.04.08
Yigal Shochat
I used to be a pilot. I used to be a fighter. I don’t deny, those, this time I don’t deny those... I was shot down and injured as a fighter. I came up to this decision too late in my life. I can’t be silent anymore, I must come out from the closet. 00.04.45
00.05.05 S: Black flag. I’m not sure yet how I feel about refusing to serve in the army. I support the state of Israel and its defense. I’m against terror, inside and outside our borders… …threatening Israel. We need an army. But taking the occupation for granted worries me. 00.05.32
00.05.34 N: Yigal Shochat. 58. A pilot with a distinguished career. Role model of a younger generation of Israelis, who are willing to fight the hard fight for their right to live after the Holocaust. Every Israeli knows what happened to him in 1970. 00.05.52
00.05.53
Yigal Shochat:
The night I was returned. 00.05.55
00.05.58 Q: Do you have any memories of feelings of that moment? 00.06.00
00.06.00
Yigal Shochat
Well eh. Confusion. Lots of confusion. Very very bad medical situation. My kidney is not working at all, I’m in sepsis. High, very, very high fever. And he actually is asking me at that moment, I remember: what do I know, or do I recall anything from my navigator. Which, we were separated with the ejection and then I didn’t know what was going on about him. I didn’t know he was killed. And that’s it. This is about a week later. That’s it. That’s it. 00.06.57
00.07.03
Yigal Shochat:
Whenever I come on Saturdays over here, it brings me back to my childhood. Where Israel was undeveloped yet and the road was small... (FADE OUT) 00.07.16
00.07.16 N: The child of Moldavian Jews, Shochat, was born in Palestine even before the founding of the state of Israel. The hostile attitude of the Arabs around him was a given, but nevertheless Shochat says that it was justified to fight for his right to live. 00.07.40
00.07.41
Yigal Shochat
Very patriotic and that’s how we grew up. It was a small village in the south and going to serve in the military was very very, was something that every youngster would look for. And anticipated. And being a pilot in the air force was extremely unique. 00.08.08
00.08.13
Yigal Shochat
Sitting in the cockpit is controlling a very powerful machine. Controlling a very powerful in a matter of power and speed and height and it’s a very basic machismo instinct. 00.08.32
00.08.41 N: Shochat fought in many battles, until during a flight over the Suez Canal the dream abruptly ended.
Yigal Shochat
I was shot down by a “SAM-TWO”-missile. I was hit by that and later by another one, and I eject myself and my navigator. We both eject ourselves and we got by the Egyptians. I was shot by an Egyptian soldier on the ground and got hurt very bad in my right leg. And actually I lost my conscious there and they had to amputate my right leg above knee. Unfortunately. 00.09.31
00.09.33 N: Due to the seriousness of his wounds, the Egyptians let him go. 00.09.40
00.09.46 N: Over the past few years his convictions have changed. 00.09.49
00.09.51
Yigal Shochat
This is my favorite place to get our rest for our mind in this harsh time. 00.10.01
00.10.01 N: He is now opposed to the deployment of combat aircraft against civilian targets. And to the presence of Israeli soldiers in occupied territories. The turning point in his life came when he saw the courage of a young, conscientious objector. During a demonstration in Tel-Aviv in 2002. 00.10.21
00.10.22 S: A soldier witnesses an awful reality in the occupied territories. Thousands of people suffering in severe poverty. There are things one should not do. It is not allowed to let people starve. Not allowed to humiliate them. It is not allowed to cage them and treat them inhumane. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. The more people understand that, the sooner this damned occupation… …will come to an end. It’s in your hands. Thank you. 00.11.00
00.11.03
Yigal Shochat
When he decided to put his humanitarian principles in front of his background in front of his ideology, I was moved by his place and I decided, while you are carrying on your back all your past, all your family and friend-relationship. And when I decided I must do something I sat down and I wrote a letter, which was published as I told you. 00.11.45
00.11.47 S: Pilots should always judge their orders. If the orders are immoral, they should refuse. But they do not really question… …they are eager to go on the next mission. To kill someone in Nablus or launch a missile on Ramallah. 00.12.09
00.12.11 N: As he lives near Tel Aviv, he called his article ‘Black Flag’. After the nautical sign of staying in port during rough weather. The Stop sign. 00.12.22
00.12.24
Yigal Shochat
I am against the use of the air force against civilian population. I can’t accept using an uncontrolled bombing with what they call large uncontrolled collateral damage, when you use it on civilian people. And it doesn’t justify the means. 00.12.55
00.12.56 N: Yigal lost most of his friends, due to the letter he wrote to Ha’aretz. 00.13.05
00.13.16 TITLE=Fighter pilots in Israel are not separated from society. Many of them have a civilian career, next to being a pilot.
00.13.26 TITLE=Their commander General Ido Nehustan refuses to discuss the legitimacy of assignments.
00.13.33 A: This is unprecedented war on the face of this planet. In which a democratic country has to suffer waves after waves after waves of illegitimate barbaric killings. This is like fighting one culture, one modern culture against some ancient culture. Barbaric tribes, or something. With no more... 00.14.03
00.14.04 N: But this story is not about the rights or wrongs about Israeli politics. What we want to know is: what is in the minds of the pilots that carry out these missions. We want to know about their considerations. We filmed them at Israeli air bases for five days. There are strict rules: they cannot be filmed head-on, only the eyes the mouth or the back of the head. No questions about politics, that’s the only restriction. A confrontation with men who are prepared to take lives. 00.14.35
00.14.38 TITLE=Airbase in Northern Israel, near Lake Galilee
Cobra Squadron
00.14.42 N: We are in the north at an airbase for four cobra combat helicopters. The base is little more than an enclosed hill with interspaced barrels. This is where we meet our first pilots. It’s immediately obvious that these are not the macho top-guns that we, to be honest, expected to find. Roni, the squadron commander, strikes us as modest and inconspicuous. This is him in a small room together with three other pilots. Surrounding them are four security guards. The atmosphere is tentative at first on either side. The first question is an obvious one. 00.15.20
00.15.21 Q: About the Cobra. What kind of aircraft is that? 00.15.22
00.15.23
Roni
Okay. It’s an attack helicopter. Which can carry missiles and guns. Basically it takes two pilots. A front seat and a back seat, the back seat pilot flies the helicopter and the front seat pilot navigates and fires ammunition. And also usually the front seat pilot is the commander of the helicopter, which I am also hear. 00.15.59
00.16.02 N: The pilots strike us as civilized intelligent men. Some of them have the delicate hands of a piano player; even so these are hands that operate deadly weapons. 00.16.12
00.16.13 Q: Do you feel as an individual that you have different values once you are up in the air? 00.16.16
00.16.18
Roni
Of course not. I think before I am a pilot, I am an officer. And before that a human being. So the why I am, the way I think, the way I feel, the way I act, they do not change when I am in the air or when I am on the ground. 00.16.38
00.16.39 N: The Cobra is a naked fighting machine. The pilots are all of the same build; the helicopter fits them like a glove. The machine gun in the nose is connected to a device in the pilot’s helmet. The device precisely follows the movements of the eyes of the pilot. The machine gun sees what the pilot sees. The Cobra used to be deployed in wartime only, but since the second Intafada, Roni and the other pilots consciously seek out moral hornet’s nests time after time. 00.17.12
00.17.13
Roni
The last three years, with flying mostly in the Gaza strip and the West bank. The dilemmas of course have changed from what we knew in the past and what it is now. Sadly, most terrorist organizations take cover in civilian territories. Our dilemmas are not like usual combat, we have soldiers against terrorist in a civilian situation. And so the dilemmas are different and we approach them, almost every combat flight we have. We don’t have, we almost don’t have a flight that you don’t get into dilemmas. 00.18.00
00.18.00 TITLE= Airbase in Central Israel
Cobra Squadron
Black Hawk Squadron
00.18.16 N: This is Israel’s largest airbase. ‘Yowa Alon’, 21, is a Cobra pilot as yet he hasn’t had to kill one on a mission but... 00.18.27
00.18.28
Yowa Alon
I’m prepared to do it, yes. 00.18.29
00.18.30 N: About the fait of the Palestinians he has this to say: 00.18.34
00.18.35
Yowa Alon
I think that the whole situation they live in is not a normal situation. They are very poor, we know it. They have the live in a very difficult situation where they are being involved in terrorist acts. When they don’t want to be, they only want to live a quiet life like you, like me. And they are being washed into this situation and yes I think when I’m home, thinking to myself, I think about those people and I feel very sorry for them. We want them to be happier, we want them to work, and we want them to have more money. So they can have the force to resist these organizations that are destroying their lives, and ours. 00.19.35
00.19.46 N: Afir is 45 and pilot of a Black Hawk helicopter.
00.19.52
Afir
There are 100s of 1000s of millions of dollars invested in different things than education, hospitals and welfare. It’s a waste. What future will my kids have? What problems do we pass over to the next generation? If we won’t be able to take care of them in my generation for example maybe it will be surprising, but being a father to children also makes me understand a bit more what other, what the Palestinians for example feel when the same people, with the same age as mine, also with children. My children have Lego, they have a computer, they have a good life. Others not far from here don’t have the same life. 00.20.53
00.20.54 N: The pilots show no reserve so you come up with questions like: do you think the Palestinians have a rightful claim to a state of their own? Or, how could this be achieved? It doesn’t take long for the security guards to interfere. 00.21.04
00.21.06
Yowa Alon
No, it’s not.
Anonymous security guards
One minute? It’s politics.
00.21.10 Q: Too much politics?
00.21.12
Yowa Alon
Yeah, yes.
00.21.15 N: These are just thoughts. The reality is that helicopter pilots carry out mission after mission directed against the very Palestinians that they pity so much. Over occupied territory there are two basic goals for assault helicopters. One is the targeted liquidation such as the lethal attack on Jassin, in order to avoid further bombings. And the other is support the ground troops in their operations on Palestinian territory. The toughest missions are carried out by the most experienced pilots. And their missions that leave them with blood on their hands. 00.21.49
00.21.51
Roni
When we take off from our base, we have a mission. But it’s a very fluid mission. It’s to defend ground forces; it’s not like when we have a combat mission. Go and attack that radar, for instance, it’s not like that. That’s simple, you go, you find the radar, and you fire the missiles, you go back home. Mission completed. You try not to get hurt. But we have here different missions. Go and protect the ground force, but that’s only the beginning. The situation grows in any direction from there, and so we have always to adjust. For instance you are sent to protect the ground force. And ground forces are handling themselves well, there’s not a lot of shooting around. They do the mission, and go out. I keep high altitude, I just protect, and you give information about people you see moving, about armed people on roofs. You just give information. But then, our ground forces are surrounded. And then, they are getting killed. They are getting shot at. From all places, and they don’t even see where somebody’s shooting at them. At that situation, I might go lower. I might try to find from which window the shooting is coming. But that’s the situation. It’s dynamic, it changes. 00.23.38
00.23.39 N: Normally, Roni says, just the sight of the Cobra is enough to scare the Palestinians to death. And if necessary he fires a few rounds with his machine gun, aiming to miss. 00.23.53
00.23.54
Roni
Terrified, but not hurt.
00.23.57 N: The noise is so terrifying that people scatter in all directions, 00.24.00
00.24.10 N: The chaos allows Israeli ground troops to gain the upper hand in the fight once more. Implicitly Roni acknowledges that he’s being used to hunt innocent people, like cattle. 00.24.20
00.24.23
Roni
I’ll tell you very honest. You look like a very nice guy to me. When you tell me what you’re doing and you’re using your guns to terrify, how hard would it be for you to be confronted with a 8 year old boy that was scared to death because of your action? 00.24.43
00.24.45
Afir
Well actually,
00.24.48 Q: You understand why I am asking this?
00.24.50
Roni
I think I understand what you’re asking. I also come from a different place at my other work. I don’t work in the military only; I am a doctor, and actually a pediatrician. A kid’s doctor. And so, I deal with children, actually almost all day long. Sometimes two days in a row, when I’m on duty. And so I much sympathize with the fear, with their problem. Also in the hospital in which I work, which is in the central of Israel, brings Palestinian children from all around, from the West bank and we treat them in the hospital. So I can say confidently, that I really sympathize with them and I know exactly what they’re going through, from talks with them. 00.26.00
00.26.08 N: So, besides being a helicopter pilot, Roni is also a pediatrician. The hospital that he works for also treats Palestinian children. 00.26.18
00.26.20
Roni
[doctor-patient conversation, not translated]
00.26.23 N: This mother is unaware of Roni’s background. 00.26.28
00.26.29
Roni
And so he had one operation a few months ago and now a second operation two and a halve weeks ago. 00.26.35
00.26.38 N: She doesn’t know that the doctor that saved here child is also a helicopter pilot. 00.26.42
00.26.43
Roni
And actually he’s recovered very well from the second operation and today they’re going home.
00.26.50
00.27.00 N: These shots were taken from a Cobra helicopter. They show in detail how pilots track down terrorist leaders. 00.27.08
00.27.08
Roni
We have missiles. Which are very accurate. Which go exactly to the point where I am aiming at, for instance if I want to hit a window. I can hit, not only the window, I can hit the side of the window that I want to hit. Not in the middle of the window, but in the right side of the window. It is very very accurate. 00.27.36
00.27.37 S: The vehicle is starting to move.
It’s gone.
I can see it.
It’s getting away. 00.27.49
00.27.51 N: That there’s one thing that Roni is adamant about. The final decision is always with the pilot. And often, he says, he decides not to fire. 00.27.59
00.28.00
Roni
It’s a civilian area, territory. There are civilians with terrorists in sight. So we cannot use our force, and you have to know when to fire, and when not to fire. I cannot tell you, I cannot even count situations in which I was called upon to fire and I didn’t. I cannot even count the situations, they are numerous. 00.28.29
00.28.30 S: Forget it; it’s a long way off now. It’s already in Nablus.
Understood. 00.28.36
00.28.39
Roni
We have to think once, and then twice and then a third time. 00.28.45
00.28.46 S: Suspend action. Don’t respond. An ambulance is arriving. 00.28.49
00.28.50 N: But however convincing their own footage may look, on many occasions they feel firing is justified. And there is never a guarantee that there won’t be any civilian casualties. The military in him wants to deny this, the human in him, can’t. 00.29.04
00.29.05
Roni
I think thoughts about it are in my mind. I think no one can live his life peacefully and calm fully in a situation like here. What I always think about… 00.29.20
00.29.22 N: Then Roni takes us to such a decisive moment. He is high up in his helicopter. He knows he is going to kill someone and he also knows that making innocent victims a possibility. Fatalities, even. At that moment he hangs on to that one thought. 00.29.37
00.29.38
Roni
How to stop the next bomb from exploding, next to my children. That’s the thought, how to stop the terrorists from coming into Tel-Aviv and exploding in a restaurant with one year old child and his mother and his dad and his grandmother and his grandfather. 00.29.56
00.29.57 Q: So finally you’re saying the goal justifies the means?
00.30.00
Roni
It’s the goal to try and stop terrorists.
00.30.04 Q: And the means are justified?
00.30.06
Roni
And the means are the least harmful means possible.
00.30.12 Q: Justified.
00.30.13
Roni
Justified.
00.30.43 N: Fire only when there’s minimal risk at civilian casualties. Officially, that is the combat instruction. But sometimes things go horribly wrong. 00.30.53
00.30.55 TITLE=Airbase in Izrael Valley
F-16 Squadron
00.31.39 N: An airbase for jetfighters, again, in the North of the country. Dozens of F-16’s take-off to train for a so called dogfight. 00.31.48
00.31.52 N: It was one of these F-16’s that dropped a 1.000 kilo bomb on a high rise in Gaza. On the 22nd of July 2002. The bomb not only killed the designated target, Hamas leader Salah Shedada, but also twelve civilians who happened to be in the building. Incidents like these, that kill innocent civilians, occur all the time. Brigadier General Nehoestan commands all Israeli fighter pilots. 00.32.23
00.32.25 Q: What do you, is the figure of innocent people getting killed over the last, let’s say, three years? 00.32.29
00.32.30
Brigadier General Nehoestan
I wouldn’t know. I don’t know. I know I can tell you of the number of civilians that got killed in our country, yes. Our friends. Our women and children, yes. We have not targeted any civilians; we do not target any civilians. They target only civilians. 00.32.50
00.32.51 N: But the F-16 pilots fly over their targets at over a 1000 km per hour. Psychologically they are in a totally different position from the helicopter pilots, such as Roni, Roni can almost look its targets in the eye. 00.33.07
00.33.13
Roni
It doesn’t seem so bad.
00.33.24
Roni
The situation we are in is a situation where I look at myself as trying to do as little as possible damage with the maximum effect for our soldiers. So in order to keep them alive, and actually, I sometimes look at much as what I’m doing in the hospital the day after. Cause over there I’m working to safe children, and over here the only thing I’m working for is to save our soldiers. It’s not anything else. Not anything else. And even when I hear about the bus in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv. And I hear about it, it doesn’t change the way I treat the children in the hospital the day after. Even though they are Palestinians and their father and mother they know it. And they know there was a bomb in a bus and sometimes they feel very bad about it. But there’s nothing I can do about the bomb, and there’s nothing they can do about the bomb. And so we know the situation between us is difficult, and that’s the situation we live in. Nothing is simple here in the Middle East, nothing. And so the dilemmas I have at flight, the dilemmas they have in the hospital, it’s the same situation. We are both in the same boat, as we say in Israel. 00.34.58
00.35.21 TITLE= March 2004
00.35.24 TITLE=Alon is 26. He belongs to a group of pilots that decided to sign the letter of Yigal Shochat.
00.35.36 N: A spoiled brat from the richest district of Tel Aviv, that’s what he calls himself. Captain Alon. Black Hawk pilot in the Israeli air force. A lucky child, he’d been. 00.35.47
00.35.51
Alon
When I saw this piece of paper, it’s like there wasn’t any other choice. Once you’ve red it, you knew, you had to sign it eventually. Because it’s true. It’s something you cannot, you cannot avoid. Maybe you can postpone in a week, or two weeks, three weeks. But deep in your heart, you know that this has to be done. Because we are, I feel, we are on the verge of the abyss. 00.36.23
00.36.30
Alon
We are becoming blunt. We are becoming blind. It’s harder and harder for us to make simple distinctions. Distinctions that were so simple to make a few years ago. As I told you before, this pilot now cannot make a distinction between the innocent and the terrorist. He tries; he does whatever he can to prevent the loss of innocent lives. I believe him. But we are willing, as a society, to accept the fact that innocent lives will be killed. This is unbelievable to me. The limitation is what differentiates us from the terrorists. They are willing to do things that we are not. This is why we are not terrorists. This is why we are citizens or pilots or officers or soldiers in a democratic country. This distinction is the essence of our being. If we are going to lose that, this is the point of no return. 00.37.28
00.37.30 N: Alon belonged to the Israeli jet set. Intelligent and from an affluent family. He lives in a beautiful apartment in Tel Aviv, beach front, and he’s a pilot. 00.37.44
00.37.47
Alon
We are used to be treated as the crème de la crème. We are used to be in this very comfortable place, where, I don’t see it this way, but this is like the social dynamics if you want in Israel. And it’s not easy to let go. Why? I mean, it’s comfortable over here, why let go? I think we only the last few years, we are, the Israel society’s is starting to make the connection between the terror, this terrible situation that we are facing and the occupation. Until now, it’s we are living our lives, and yes there is another nation and yes they’re being oppressed yes it’s a problem. Now it’s our problem. All of a sudden. Now it’s prayed for. Now we care. So I’m asking, maybe if along all those years, we, as a nation would care a little bit more, and we would be able to look at the other side a little bit more, we wouldn’t be here today sitting and talking about a group of pilots who had to refuse because the things they were asked to do by their commander that they said: enough. Until here, I am not crossing that line. You’ve gone too far. 00.39.13
00.39.14 N: Alon’s signed the now familiar letter along with 26 other pilots. They refused to serve in occupied territories.
00.39.28
Alon
Take a good look at the other side, and see that there are people over there. People like you, like me, they did nothing wrong, they are not guilty of anything but maybe being born a 100 km to the south, or 30 km to the east of Tel Aviv. And yes, among them are terrorists, yes, maybe some of the deserve to die. Just beside them is a whole nation, just like ourselves, I strongly believe that this nation, these people, the Palestinians have a right a right to live in their own country peacefully and securely as I believe that my own people have the right to do so in their own country. 00.40.00
00.40.00 N: Alon still shows much respect for the air force. That’s why he only wants to be filmed according to air force regulations. In silhouette or just the eye. That’s why he doesn’t want us to use his family name. Perhaps he doesn’t really believe anymore that he will return as a fighter pilot, and it is only his affection to the air force that makes him stick to the rules. 00.40.23
00.40.25 Q: What is the price you pay?
00.40.26
Alon
Well, first of all, all of us, the active reserve pilots were invited to the air force commander office for a private conversation in which we had the opportunity to withdraw our signature, and since we did not, we seized to be pilots. We were dismissed. And no longer serving in the Israeli air force after serving eight years. And after a flight being one of the major parts of my life. But you know, it’s funny, I, funny isn’t the right word, but I thought that this would be the main price. The main thing is go, and think about after the signature. But I found out that there are even more expensive prices that we pay. It’s not always so dramatic, but I can recall driving in my car, waiting for the stoplight to turn. And there I saw one of my friends, fellow friend pilot. He just returned from his base, it was in the evening. And he was a close friend of mine from the squadron, we went abroad one time together. I was looking to see his eyes and then he caught me with his eyes and then he, oh, looked back. And I think at that moment I understood something that I didn’t understand before. That from being a person that everyone looks to see and looks for and looks for the eye contact with. I became a person that once you see him, you turn away. You turn your looks away. 00.42.21
00.42.22 N: But there are signs of support. More and more.
00.42.30
Alon
Shalom, we researchers and teachers at the Techlion University, would like to extend our support and gratitude for courageous step. Increasingly we feel, during the recent years we feel alienated from our society. Suffocated by the growing by the growing indifference to the basic human values. We are deeply alarmed by the damage to our very existence as a nation and society. Caused by the ongoing occupation and our governments brutal policy towards the Palestinians. 00.42.56
00.42.58
Brigadier General Nehoestan
Look, we do not have to apologize for fighting and defending our people. And knowing the history of this country, and the history of our people, I think they can look straight in the mirrors and tell themselves, each and every morning, that they have the privilege of being in the front line. And saving lives in Israel, yes, and they live also when they get up in the morning and go to the hospital, you’ve talked to one of our pilots who is a doctor already, and see, they.. Casualties lying in the streets, in this country, and this is a small country, you see everything. They can look straight into the mirror and say: yes, we are part of the big effort of the armed forces to save people in Israel. Yes! 00.44.01
00.44.10 TITLE=Ironically, Yigal moved his career in the same direction as Roni. After his recovery he became a physician. A few years ago he retired. Now he uses his skills to make his own statement.
00.44.21 N: Of all the people, it is this national hero who chooses to go against the grain. Pilots have to refuse to shoot at civilians, so he says. 00.44.33
00.44.34
Yigal Shochat
That’s my statement. That’s the word. I’m making a statement by going every Saturday that I can to the occupied territories as a physician. For me it’s a political statement. 00.44.49
00.44.50 N: For many Israeli this is treason. Every week he enters the Palestinian territories with a convoy of doctors, unarmed, without protection. 00.44.59
00.45.00
Yigal Shochat
There is always risk. I just care that if I will be shot, I want that the one who shot me knows who I was, just to make sure that he meant to do it. Because I can be shot by Palestinians, trying to attack Israeli citizen, or by the other side, the Israeli fanatic side, which will be happy to shoot me too. 00.45.39
00.45.40 N: The physicians want to treat Palestinians medically. Circumstances in the occupied territories gradually deteriorate. 00.45.49
00.45.50
Yigal Shochat
You see, this is one of the road blocks, which do not allow people from this large town to get on the main road. For some reasons they opened the road block, probably the village behaved for the last two months according to the regulations. They become what we call, good Arabs. 00.46.25
00.46.33 N: In the village Yansprut, over 300 patients have gathered with different ailments. Many ailments are easy to treat, provided that there’s a doctor at hand.
[patients are being helped by the doctors..]
00.48.25 S: The concept of the black flag is very adequate. It means that you don’t obey an order that you regard immoral. But most of our soldiers don’t practice this right. If you are in the middle of it, your perspective is different. 00.48.45
00.48.51
Yiagl Shochat
I’m quite proud of what I did as a pilot, when I served. Didn’t have any moral conflict, when I was asked to use my airplane as weapon. But it’s not acceptable to me to use an F-16 on a city. Whatsoever. 00.49.19
00.49.20
Alon
I don’t want to compare this situation to the terrible situation that my people, the Jewish people, knew a few years ago. There is no comparison. But I can recall as a Jewish student in elementary school, you know this is something that I think is common to every other Jewish kid in the third or fourth grade. In that horrible day that we mention these historic catastrophes that we knew, and as a child you ask yourselves: how can it be? No one said no? How can it be that no one stood up and said: I’m not willing to that, period. And this is what we are saying. We are not willing on this train, we are not willing to be the drivers, or not the conductors, or not even the salesmen in the buffet. Because this train is driving in the wrong direction. 00.50.21
00.50.34 Q: Are you not afraid that when you are old, and you’re retired, that maybe a lot of questions will come to your mind? 00.50.43
00.50.44
Roni
A lot of questions come to my mind even now, not that I’m young, but they come to my mind even now.
00.50.51 Q: Like?
00.50.52
Roni
Even after every mission I do with no ammunition fired, I have questions.
00.51.01 Q: Like?
00.51.02
Roni
I have questions like: where are we going to with this situation? All of us. Israel and the Palestinians. Is there ever going to be a life where my children will not have to deal with the dilemmas that I’m dealing and with the things I have to deal with? In the air and on the ground. Will they grow up raising their children with fear of sending them on the bus every day, or will this be over some day? And there will be peace and the Palestinians will live peacefully and we will leave peacefully. Without fear, not them from us and not us from them. That’s something I’m always thinking about, and is there another way to do things? Is there a better way to do things? And I must say, it is not a simple situation. I don’t see many solutions right now, but I’m sure the way things are now cannot prolongue. It is an impossible situation that can not go on for long like this. 00.52.22
00.52.23 TITLE=Directors
Peter Tetteroo
Adi Tal
00.52.26 TITLE=Camera
Pieter Groeneveld
00.52.28 TITLE=Film editors
Christ van Liempd
Ramzi Suudi
00.52.31 TITLE=Narration
00.52.34 TITLE=Production team
Mirjam de Heus
Lia Stok
Maarten Trijsburg
00.52.37 TITLE=Deputy editor
Sven Kockelmann
00.52.39 TITLE=Editor in chief
Kees Boonman
00.52.45 TITLE=Copyright
KRO Broadcasting
The Netherlands 2005
Narrator: N
Director: Q
Subtitles: S
Title: TITLE=…
TC: first shot = 00.00.00.
00.00.11 TITLE= Assignment: forced to choose - Israel’s fighter pilots
00.00.20 TITLE= Yigal, Alon, Roni. Fighter pilots. They share their love for flight. They share their pride in Israel.
00.01.56 Q: Try to go back in your memory. Was there a moment you can recall you hated yourself? 00.02.02
00.02.03
Roni
No. I think I.. I always think about those things. Usually I think about it after the flight. Or before the flight sometimes, but I never hate myself, because I know that the man I am in the aircraft, is the man I am on the ground. 00.02.27
00.02.31 S: I can see it.
-They’ve arrived at the vehicle.
The vehicle is starting to move.
It’s escaping in an easterly direction. 00.02.47
00.03.02
Brigadier General Nehoestan
It’s okay to question. I don’t call to refuse. This is not my message, my message is to take responsibility. We are personally responsible. 00.03.13
00.03.19 TITLE = December 2002. Yigal Shochat is the first former fighter pilot that publicly questions assignments of the Israeli Air Force. 00.03.35
00.04.08
Yigal Shochat
I used to be a pilot. I used to be a fighter. I don’t deny, those, this time I don’t deny those... I was shot down and injured as a fighter. I came up to this decision too late in my life. I can’t be silent anymore, I must come out from the closet. 00.04.45
00.05.05 S: Black flag. I’m not sure yet how I feel about refusing to serve in the army. I support the state of Israel and its defense. I’m against terror, inside and outside our borders… …threatening Israel. We need an army. But taking the occupation for granted worries me. 00.05.32
00.05.34 N: Yigal Shochat. 58. A pilot with a distinguished career. Role model of a younger generation of Israelis, who are willing to fight the hard fight for their right to live after the Holocaust. Every Israeli knows what happened to him in 1970. 00.05.52
00.05.53
Yigal Shochat:
The night I was returned. 00.05.55
00.05.58 Q: Do you have any memories of feelings of that moment? 00.06.00
00.06.00
Yigal Shochat
Well eh. Confusion. Lots of confusion. Very very bad medical situation. My kidney is not working at all, I’m in sepsis. High, very, very high fever. And he actually is asking me at that moment, I remember: what do I know, or do I recall anything from my navigator. Which, we were separated with the ejection and then I didn’t know what was going on about him. I didn’t know he was killed. And that’s it. This is about a week later. That’s it. That’s it. 00.06.57
00.07.03
Yigal Shochat:
Whenever I come on Saturdays over here, it brings me back to my childhood. Where Israel was undeveloped yet and the road was small... (FADE OUT) 00.07.16
00.07.16 N: The child of Moldavian Jews, Shochat, was born in Palestine even before the founding of the state of Israel. The hostile attitude of the Arabs around him was a given, but nevertheless Shochat says that it was justified to fight for his right to live. 00.07.40
00.07.41
Yigal Shochat
Very patriotic and that’s how we grew up. It was a small village in the south and going to serve in the military was very very, was something that every youngster would look for. And anticipated. And being a pilot in the air force was extremely unique. 00.08.08
00.08.13
Yigal Shochat
Sitting in the cockpit is controlling a very powerful machine. Controlling a very powerful in a matter of power and speed and height and it’s a very basic machismo instinct. 00.08.32
00.08.41 N: Shochat fought in many battles, until during a flight over the Suez Canal the dream abruptly ended.
Yigal Shochat
I was shot down by a “SAM-TWO”-missile. I was hit by that and later by another one, and I eject myself and my navigator. We both eject ourselves and we got by the Egyptians. I was shot by an Egyptian soldier on the ground and got hurt very bad in my right leg. And actually I lost my conscious there and they had to amputate my right leg above knee. Unfortunately. 00.09.31
00.09.33 N: Due to the seriousness of his wounds, the Egyptians let him go. 00.09.40
00.09.46 N: Over the past few years his convictions have changed. 00.09.49
00.09.51
Yigal Shochat
This is my favorite place to get our rest for our mind in this harsh time. 00.10.01
00.10.01 N: He is now opposed to the deployment of combat aircraft against civilian targets. And to the presence of Israeli soldiers in occupied territories. The turning point in his life came when he saw the courage of a young, conscientious objector. During a demonstration in Tel-Aviv in 2002. 00.10.21
00.10.22 S: A soldier witnesses an awful reality in the occupied territories. Thousands of people suffering in severe poverty. There are things one should not do. It is not allowed to let people starve. Not allowed to humiliate them. It is not allowed to cage them and treat them inhumane. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. The more people understand that, the sooner this damned occupation… …will come to an end. It’s in your hands. Thank you. 00.11.00
00.11.03
Yigal Shochat
When he decided to put his humanitarian principles in front of his background in front of his ideology, I was moved by his place and I decided, while you are carrying on your back all your past, all your family and friend-relationship. And when I decided I must do something I sat down and I wrote a letter, which was published as I told you. 00.11.45
00.11.47 S: Pilots should always judge their orders. If the orders are immoral, they should refuse. But they do not really question… …they are eager to go on the next mission. To kill someone in Nablus or launch a missile on Ramallah. 00.12.09
00.12.11 N: As he lives near Tel Aviv, he called his article ‘Black Flag’. After the nautical sign of staying in port during rough weather. The Stop sign. 00.12.22
00.12.24
Yigal Shochat
I am against the use of the air force against civilian population. I can’t accept using an uncontrolled bombing with what they call large uncontrolled collateral damage, when you use it on civilian people. And it doesn’t justify the means. 00.12.55
00.12.56 N: Yigal lost most of his friends, due to the letter he wrote to Ha’aretz. 00.13.05
00.13.16 TITLE=Fighter pilots in Israel are not separated from society. Many of them have a civilian career, next to being a pilot.
00.13.26 TITLE=Their commander General Ido Nehustan refuses to discuss the legitimacy of assignments.
00.13.33 A: This is unprecedented war on the face of this planet. In which a democratic country has to suffer waves after waves after waves of illegitimate barbaric killings. This is like fighting one culture, one modern culture against some ancient culture. Barbaric tribes, or something. With no more... 00.14.03
00.14.04 N: But this story is not about the rights or wrongs about Israeli politics. What we want to know is: what is in the minds of the pilots that carry out these missions. We want to know about their considerations. We filmed them at Israeli air bases for five days. There are strict rules: they cannot be filmed head-on, only the eyes the mouth or the back of the head. No questions about politics, that’s the only restriction. A confrontation with men who are prepared to take lives. 00.14.35
00.14.38 TITLE=Airbase in Northern Israel, near Lake Galilee
Cobra Squadron
00.14.42 N: We are in the north at an airbase for four cobra combat helicopters. The base is little more than an enclosed hill with interspaced barrels. This is where we meet our first pilots. It’s immediately obvious that these are not the macho top-guns that we, to be honest, expected to find. Roni, the squadron commander, strikes us as modest and inconspicuous. This is him in a small room together with three other pilots. Surrounding them are four security guards. The atmosphere is tentative at first on either side. The first question is an obvious one. 00.15.20
00.15.21 Q: About the Cobra. What kind of aircraft is that? 00.15.22
00.15.23
Roni
Okay. It’s an attack helicopter. Which can carry missiles and guns. Basically it takes two pilots. A front seat and a back seat, the back seat pilot flies the helicopter and the front seat pilot navigates and fires ammunition. And also usually the front seat pilot is the commander of the helicopter, which I am also hear. 00.15.59
00.16.02 N: The pilots strike us as civilized intelligent men. Some of them have the delicate hands of a piano player; even so these are hands that operate deadly weapons. 00.16.12
00.16.13 Q: Do you feel as an individual that you have different values once you are up in the air? 00.16.16
00.16.18
Roni
Of course not. I think before I am a pilot, I am an officer. And before that a human being. So the why I am, the way I think, the way I feel, the way I act, they do not change when I am in the air or when I am on the ground. 00.16.38
00.16.39 N: The Cobra is a naked fighting machine. The pilots are all of the same build; the helicopter fits them like a glove. The machine gun in the nose is connected to a device in the pilot’s helmet. The device precisely follows the movements of the eyes of the pilot. The machine gun sees what the pilot sees. The Cobra used to be deployed in wartime only, but since the second Intafada, Roni and the other pilots consciously seek out moral hornet’s nests time after time. 00.17.12
00.17.13
Roni
The last three years, with flying mostly in the Gaza strip and the West bank. The dilemmas of course have changed from what we knew in the past and what it is now. Sadly, most terrorist organizations take cover in civilian territories. Our dilemmas are not like usual combat, we have soldiers against terrorist in a civilian situation. And so the dilemmas are different and we approach them, almost every combat flight we have. We don’t have, we almost don’t have a flight that you don’t get into dilemmas. 00.18.00
00.18.00 TITLE= Airbase in Central Israel
Cobra Squadron
Black Hawk Squadron
00.18.16 N: This is Israel’s largest airbase. ‘Yowa Alon’, 21, is a Cobra pilot as yet he hasn’t had to kill one on a mission but... 00.18.27
00.18.28
Yowa Alon
I’m prepared to do it, yes. 00.18.29
00.18.30 N: About the fait of the Palestinians he has this to say: 00.18.34
00.18.35
Yowa Alon
I think that the whole situation they live in is not a normal situation. They are very poor, we know it. They have the live in a very difficult situation where they are being involved in terrorist acts. When they don’t want to be, they only want to live a quiet life like you, like me. And they are being washed into this situation and yes I think when I’m home, thinking to myself, I think about those people and I feel very sorry for them. We want them to be happier, we want them to work, and we want them to have more money. So they can have the force to resist these organizations that are destroying their lives, and ours. 00.19.35
00.19.46 N: Afir is 45 and pilot of a Black Hawk helicopter.
00.19.52
Afir
There are 100s of 1000s of millions of dollars invested in different things than education, hospitals and welfare. It’s a waste. What future will my kids have? What problems do we pass over to the next generation? If we won’t be able to take care of them in my generation for example maybe it will be surprising, but being a father to children also makes me understand a bit more what other, what the Palestinians for example feel when the same people, with the same age as mine, also with children. My children have Lego, they have a computer, they have a good life. Others not far from here don’t have the same life. 00.20.53
00.20.54 N: The pilots show no reserve so you come up with questions like: do you think the Palestinians have a rightful claim to a state of their own? Or, how could this be achieved? It doesn’t take long for the security guards to interfere. 00.21.04
00.21.06
Yowa Alon
No, it’s not.
Anonymous security guards
One minute? It’s politics.
00.21.10 Q: Too much politics?
00.21.12
Yowa Alon
Yeah, yes.
00.21.15 N: These are just thoughts. The reality is that helicopter pilots carry out mission after mission directed against the very Palestinians that they pity so much. Over occupied territory there are two basic goals for assault helicopters. One is the targeted liquidation such as the lethal attack on Jassin, in order to avoid further bombings. And the other is support the ground troops in their operations on Palestinian territory. The toughest missions are carried out by the most experienced pilots. And their missions that leave them with blood on their hands. 00.21.49
00.21.51
Roni
When we take off from our base, we have a mission. But it’s a very fluid mission. It’s to defend ground forces; it’s not like when we have a combat mission. Go and attack that radar, for instance, it’s not like that. That’s simple, you go, you find the radar, and you fire the missiles, you go back home. Mission completed. You try not to get hurt. But we have here different missions. Go and protect the ground force, but that’s only the beginning. The situation grows in any direction from there, and so we have always to adjust. For instance you are sent to protect the ground force. And ground forces are handling themselves well, there’s not a lot of shooting around. They do the mission, and go out. I keep high altitude, I just protect, and you give information about people you see moving, about armed people on roofs. You just give information. But then, our ground forces are surrounded. And then, they are getting killed. They are getting shot at. From all places, and they don’t even see where somebody’s shooting at them. At that situation, I might go lower. I might try to find from which window the shooting is coming. But that’s the situation. It’s dynamic, it changes. 00.23.38
00.23.39 N: Normally, Roni says, just the sight of the Cobra is enough to scare the Palestinians to death. And if necessary he fires a few rounds with his machine gun, aiming to miss. 00.23.53
00.23.54
Roni
Terrified, but not hurt.
00.23.57 N: The noise is so terrifying that people scatter in all directions, 00.24.00
00.24.10 N: The chaos allows Israeli ground troops to gain the upper hand in the fight once more. Implicitly Roni acknowledges that he’s being used to hunt innocent people, like cattle. 00.24.20
00.24.23
Roni
I’ll tell you very honest. You look like a very nice guy to me. When you tell me what you’re doing and you’re using your guns to terrify, how hard would it be for you to be confronted with a 8 year old boy that was scared to death because of your action? 00.24.43
00.24.45
Afir
Well actually,
00.24.48 Q: You understand why I am asking this?
00.24.50
Roni
I think I understand what you’re asking. I also come from a different place at my other work. I don’t work in the military only; I am a doctor, and actually a pediatrician. A kid’s doctor. And so, I deal with children, actually almost all day long. Sometimes two days in a row, when I’m on duty. And so I much sympathize with the fear, with their problem. Also in the hospital in which I work, which is in the central of Israel, brings Palestinian children from all around, from the West bank and we treat them in the hospital. So I can say confidently, that I really sympathize with them and I know exactly what they’re going through, from talks with them. 00.26.00
00.26.08 N: So, besides being a helicopter pilot, Roni is also a pediatrician. The hospital that he works for also treats Palestinian children. 00.26.18
00.26.20
Roni
[doctor-patient conversation, not translated]
00.26.23 N: This mother is unaware of Roni’s background. 00.26.28
00.26.29
Roni
And so he had one operation a few months ago and now a second operation two and a halve weeks ago. 00.26.35
00.26.38 N: She doesn’t know that the doctor that saved here child is also a helicopter pilot. 00.26.42
00.26.43
Roni
And actually he’s recovered very well from the second operation and today they’re going home.
00.26.50
00.27.00 N: These shots were taken from a Cobra helicopter. They show in detail how pilots track down terrorist leaders. 00.27.08
00.27.08
Roni
We have missiles. Which are very accurate. Which go exactly to the point where I am aiming at, for instance if I want to hit a window. I can hit, not only the window, I can hit the side of the window that I want to hit. Not in the middle of the window, but in the right side of the window. It is very very accurate. 00.27.36
00.27.37 S: The vehicle is starting to move.
It’s gone.
I can see it.
It’s getting away. 00.27.49
00.27.51 N: That there’s one thing that Roni is adamant about. The final decision is always with the pilot. And often, he says, he decides not to fire. 00.27.59
00.28.00
Roni
It’s a civilian area, territory. There are civilians with terrorists in sight. So we cannot use our force, and you have to know when to fire, and when not to fire. I cannot tell you, I cannot even count situations in which I was called upon to fire and I didn’t. I cannot even count the situations, they are numerous. 00.28.29
00.28.30 S: Forget it; it’s a long way off now. It’s already in Nablus.
Understood. 00.28.36
00.28.39
Roni
We have to think once, and then twice and then a third time. 00.28.45
00.28.46 S: Suspend action. Don’t respond. An ambulance is arriving. 00.28.49
00.28.50 N: But however convincing their own footage may look, on many occasions they feel firing is justified. And there is never a guarantee that there won’t be any civilian casualties. The military in him wants to deny this, the human in him, can’t. 00.29.04
00.29.05
Roni
I think thoughts about it are in my mind. I think no one can live his life peacefully and calm fully in a situation like here. What I always think about… 00.29.20
00.29.22 N: Then Roni takes us to such a decisive moment. He is high up in his helicopter. He knows he is going to kill someone and he also knows that making innocent victims a possibility. Fatalities, even. At that moment he hangs on to that one thought. 00.29.37
00.29.38
Roni
How to stop the next bomb from exploding, next to my children. That’s the thought, how to stop the terrorists from coming into Tel-Aviv and exploding in a restaurant with one year old child and his mother and his dad and his grandmother and his grandfather. 00.29.56
00.29.57 Q: So finally you’re saying the goal justifies the means?
00.30.00
Roni
It’s the goal to try and stop terrorists.
00.30.04 Q: And the means are justified?
00.30.06
Roni
And the means are the least harmful means possible.
00.30.12 Q: Justified.
00.30.13
Roni
Justified.
00.30.43 N: Fire only when there’s minimal risk at civilian casualties. Officially, that is the combat instruction. But sometimes things go horribly wrong. 00.30.53
00.30.55 TITLE=Airbase in Izrael Valley
F-16 Squadron
00.31.39 N: An airbase for jetfighters, again, in the North of the country. Dozens of F-16’s take-off to train for a so called dogfight. 00.31.48
00.31.52 N: It was one of these F-16’s that dropped a 1.000 kilo bomb on a high rise in Gaza. On the 22nd of July 2002. The bomb not only killed the designated target, Hamas leader Salah Shedada, but also twelve civilians who happened to be in the building. Incidents like these, that kill innocent civilians, occur all the time. Brigadier General Nehoestan commands all Israeli fighter pilots. 00.32.23
00.32.25 Q: What do you, is the figure of innocent people getting killed over the last, let’s say, three years? 00.32.29
00.32.30
Brigadier General Nehoestan
I wouldn’t know. I don’t know. I know I can tell you of the number of civilians that got killed in our country, yes. Our friends. Our women and children, yes. We have not targeted any civilians; we do not target any civilians. They target only civilians. 00.32.50
00.32.51 N: But the F-16 pilots fly over their targets at over a 1000 km per hour. Psychologically they are in a totally different position from the helicopter pilots, such as Roni, Roni can almost look its targets in the eye. 00.33.07
00.33.13
Roni
It doesn’t seem so bad.
00.33.24
Roni
The situation we are in is a situation where I look at myself as trying to do as little as possible damage with the maximum effect for our soldiers. So in order to keep them alive, and actually, I sometimes look at much as what I’m doing in the hospital the day after. Cause over there I’m working to safe children, and over here the only thing I’m working for is to save our soldiers. It’s not anything else. Not anything else. And even when I hear about the bus in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv. And I hear about it, it doesn’t change the way I treat the children in the hospital the day after. Even though they are Palestinians and their father and mother they know it. And they know there was a bomb in a bus and sometimes they feel very bad about it. But there’s nothing I can do about the bomb, and there’s nothing they can do about the bomb. And so we know the situation between us is difficult, and that’s the situation we live in. Nothing is simple here in the Middle East, nothing. And so the dilemmas I have at flight, the dilemmas they have in the hospital, it’s the same situation. We are both in the same boat, as we say in Israel. 00.34.58
00.35.21 TITLE= March 2004
00.35.24 TITLE=Alon is 26. He belongs to a group of pilots that decided to sign the letter of Yigal Shochat.
00.35.36 N: A spoiled brat from the richest district of Tel Aviv, that’s what he calls himself. Captain Alon. Black Hawk pilot in the Israeli air force. A lucky child, he’d been. 00.35.47
00.35.51
Alon
When I saw this piece of paper, it’s like there wasn’t any other choice. Once you’ve red it, you knew, you had to sign it eventually. Because it’s true. It’s something you cannot, you cannot avoid. Maybe you can postpone in a week, or two weeks, three weeks. But deep in your heart, you know that this has to be done. Because we are, I feel, we are on the verge of the abyss. 00.36.23
00.36.30
Alon
We are becoming blunt. We are becoming blind. It’s harder and harder for us to make simple distinctions. Distinctions that were so simple to make a few years ago. As I told you before, this pilot now cannot make a distinction between the innocent and the terrorist. He tries; he does whatever he can to prevent the loss of innocent lives. I believe him. But we are willing, as a society, to accept the fact that innocent lives will be killed. This is unbelievable to me. The limitation is what differentiates us from the terrorists. They are willing to do things that we are not. This is why we are not terrorists. This is why we are citizens or pilots or officers or soldiers in a democratic country. This distinction is the essence of our being. If we are going to lose that, this is the point of no return. 00.37.28
00.37.30 N: Alon belonged to the Israeli jet set. Intelligent and from an affluent family. He lives in a beautiful apartment in Tel Aviv, beach front, and he’s a pilot. 00.37.44
00.37.47
Alon
We are used to be treated as the crème de la crème. We are used to be in this very comfortable place, where, I don’t see it this way, but this is like the social dynamics if you want in Israel. And it’s not easy to let go. Why? I mean, it’s comfortable over here, why let go? I think we only the last few years, we are, the Israel society’s is starting to make the connection between the terror, this terrible situation that we are facing and the occupation. Until now, it’s we are living our lives, and yes there is another nation and yes they’re being oppressed yes it’s a problem. Now it’s our problem. All of a sudden. Now it’s prayed for. Now we care. So I’m asking, maybe if along all those years, we, as a nation would care a little bit more, and we would be able to look at the other side a little bit more, we wouldn’t be here today sitting and talking about a group of pilots who had to refuse because the things they were asked to do by their commander that they said: enough. Until here, I am not crossing that line. You’ve gone too far. 00.39.13
00.39.14 N: Alon’s signed the now familiar letter along with 26 other pilots. They refused to serve in occupied territories.
00.39.28
Alon
Take a good look at the other side, and see that there are people over there. People like you, like me, they did nothing wrong, they are not guilty of anything but maybe being born a 100 km to the south, or 30 km to the east of Tel Aviv. And yes, among them are terrorists, yes, maybe some of the deserve to die. Just beside them is a whole nation, just like ourselves, I strongly believe that this nation, these people, the Palestinians have a right a right to live in their own country peacefully and securely as I believe that my own people have the right to do so in their own country. 00.40.00
00.40.00 N: Alon still shows much respect for the air force. That’s why he only wants to be filmed according to air force regulations. In silhouette or just the eye. That’s why he doesn’t want us to use his family name. Perhaps he doesn’t really believe anymore that he will return as a fighter pilot, and it is only his affection to the air force that makes him stick to the rules. 00.40.23
00.40.25 Q: What is the price you pay?
00.40.26
Alon
Well, first of all, all of us, the active reserve pilots were invited to the air force commander office for a private conversation in which we had the opportunity to withdraw our signature, and since we did not, we seized to be pilots. We were dismissed. And no longer serving in the Israeli air force after serving eight years. And after a flight being one of the major parts of my life. But you know, it’s funny, I, funny isn’t the right word, but I thought that this would be the main price. The main thing is go, and think about after the signature. But I found out that there are even more expensive prices that we pay. It’s not always so dramatic, but I can recall driving in my car, waiting for the stoplight to turn. And there I saw one of my friends, fellow friend pilot. He just returned from his base, it was in the evening. And he was a close friend of mine from the squadron, we went abroad one time together. I was looking to see his eyes and then he caught me with his eyes and then he, oh, looked back. And I think at that moment I understood something that I didn’t understand before. That from being a person that everyone looks to see and looks for and looks for the eye contact with. I became a person that once you see him, you turn away. You turn your looks away. 00.42.21
00.42.22 N: But there are signs of support. More and more.
00.42.30
Alon
Shalom, we researchers and teachers at the Techlion University, would like to extend our support and gratitude for courageous step. Increasingly we feel, during the recent years we feel alienated from our society. Suffocated by the growing by the growing indifference to the basic human values. We are deeply alarmed by the damage to our very existence as a nation and society. Caused by the ongoing occupation and our governments brutal policy towards the Palestinians. 00.42.56
00.42.58
Brigadier General Nehoestan
Look, we do not have to apologize for fighting and defending our people. And knowing the history of this country, and the history of our people, I think they can look straight in the mirrors and tell themselves, each and every morning, that they have the privilege of being in the front line. And saving lives in Israel, yes, and they live also when they get up in the morning and go to the hospital, you’ve talked to one of our pilots who is a doctor already, and see, they.. Casualties lying in the streets, in this country, and this is a small country, you see everything. They can look straight into the mirror and say: yes, we are part of the big effort of the armed forces to save people in Israel. Yes! 00.44.01
00.44.10 TITLE=Ironically, Yigal moved his career in the same direction as Roni. After his recovery he became a physician. A few years ago he retired. Now he uses his skills to make his own statement.
00.44.21 N: Of all the people, it is this national hero who chooses to go against the grain. Pilots have to refuse to shoot at civilians, so he says. 00.44.33
00.44.34
Yigal Shochat
That’s my statement. That’s the word. I’m making a statement by going every Saturday that I can to the occupied territories as a physician. For me it’s a political statement. 00.44.49
00.44.50 N: For many Israeli this is treason. Every week he enters the Palestinian territories with a convoy of doctors, unarmed, without protection. 00.44.59
00.45.00
Yigal Shochat
There is always risk. I just care that if I will be shot, I want that the one who shot me knows who I was, just to make sure that he meant to do it. Because I can be shot by Palestinians, trying to attack Israeli citizen, or by the other side, the Israeli fanatic side, which will be happy to shoot me too. 00.45.39
00.45.40 N: The physicians want to treat Palestinians medically. Circumstances in the occupied territories gradually deteriorate. 00.45.49
00.45.50
Yigal Shochat
You see, this is one of the road blocks, which do not allow people from this large town to get on the main road. For some reasons they opened the road block, probably the village behaved for the last two months according to the regulations. They become what we call, good Arabs. 00.46.25
00.46.33 N: In the village Yansprut, over 300 patients have gathered with different ailments. Many ailments are easy to treat, provided that there’s a doctor at hand.
[patients are being helped by the doctors..]
00.48.25 S: The concept of the black flag is very adequate. It means that you don’t obey an order that you regard immoral. But most of our soldiers don’t practice this right. If you are in the middle of it, your perspective is different. 00.48.45
00.48.51
Yiagl Shochat
I’m quite proud of what I did as a pilot, when I served. Didn’t have any moral conflict, when I was asked to use my airplane as weapon. But it’s not acceptable to me to use an F-16 on a city. Whatsoever. 00.49.19
00.49.20
Alon
I don’t want to compare this situation to the terrible situation that my people, the Jewish people, knew a few years ago. There is no comparison. But I can recall as a Jewish student in elementary school, you know this is something that I think is common to every other Jewish kid in the third or fourth grade. In that horrible day that we mention these historic catastrophes that we knew, and as a child you ask yourselves: how can it be? No one said no? How can it be that no one stood up and said: I’m not willing to that, period. And this is what we are saying. We are not willing on this train, we are not willing to be the drivers, or not the conductors, or not even the salesmen in the buffet. Because this train is driving in the wrong direction. 00.50.21
00.50.34 Q: Are you not afraid that when you are old, and you’re retired, that maybe a lot of questions will come to your mind? 00.50.43
00.50.44
Roni
A lot of questions come to my mind even now, not that I’m young, but they come to my mind even now.
00.50.51 Q: Like?
00.50.52
Roni
Even after every mission I do with no ammunition fired, I have questions.
00.51.01 Q: Like?
00.51.02
Roni
I have questions like: where are we going to with this situation? All of us. Israel and the Palestinians. Is there ever going to be a life where my children will not have to deal with the dilemmas that I’m dealing and with the things I have to deal with? In the air and on the ground. Will they grow up raising their children with fear of sending them on the bus every day, or will this be over some day? And there will be peace and the Palestinians will live peacefully and we will leave peacefully. Without fear, not them from us and not us from them. That’s something I’m always thinking about, and is there another way to do things? Is there a better way to do things? And I must say, it is not a simple situation. I don’t see many solutions right now, but I’m sure the way things are now cannot prolongue. It is an impossible situation that can not go on for long like this. 00.52.22
00.52.23 TITLE=Directors
Peter Tetteroo
Adi Tal
00.52.26 TITLE=Camera
Pieter Groeneveld
00.52.28 TITLE=Film editors
Christ van Liempd
Ramzi Suudi
00.52.31 TITLE=Narration
00.52.34 TITLE=Production team
Mirjam de Heus
Lia Stok
Maarten Trijsburg
00.52.37 TITLE=Deputy editor
Sven Kockelmann
00.52.39 TITLE=Editor in chief
Kees Boonman
00.52.45 TITLE=Copyright
KRO Broadcasting
The Netherlands 2005