PATRIOTISM: Those who speak out against oppression are the true patriots

 Those who speak out against oppression are the true patriots

 Assa Doron

January 21, 2011

Patriotism generally surfaces in times of uncertainty and fear, when people coalesce to serve and protect their community and the public good. But what if such fear and uncertainty can no longer sustain the patriotic glue? What if the very ideals and values that people found worth defending begin to erode, overrun by decades of conflict, violence and oppression? Troubled times demand critical self-examination, yet the very expression of such self-doubt can also appear as weakness and disloyalty.

In Israel this issue is explosive, polarising the country and generating unprecedented intervention by the right-wing government and its affiliated agents. These include the ''loyalty laws'' proposed by right-wing MPs, designed to alienate and exclude Arab Israelis and, more recently, the move to establish a parliamentary committee to investigate the funding of human rights groups accused of ''delegitimising'' Israel and its army.

Against this unfavourable political context, the work of an organisation like Breaking the Silence, which has published hundreds of new testimonies by Israeli soldiers about their actions during the past decade in the occupied Palestinian territories and Gaza, becomes invaluable. Many were given by disaffected soldiers who had served in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-09, describing how they used Palestinian civilians as human shields.

In the past the publication of the testimonies triggered a vehement response from the well-oiled army PR machinery against ''cowardly'', anonymous testimonies by soldiers. The Israel Defence Force spokesmen said Breaking the Silence was out to tarnish the IDF.

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Assa Doron is an Israeli-Australian academic and fellow in the school of culture, history and language at the Australian National University.