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Source: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Its-time-I-break-my-silence-569481
Telling the Truth about the IDF
(Jerusalem Post) Yoseph Haddad - Next week, Harvard University will be hosting the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence (BTS), an organization funded by anti-Israel groups that incites against the State of Israel and defames the IDF. I served in the IDF during the Second Intifada. I also stood at checkpoints, stood guard, arrested people and fought in the Second Lebanon War. As an Israeli Arab and IDF solider in the Golani Brigade, I served together with Jews of all backgrounds, Druze and Bedouin. We were all equal, we were all brothers fighting side by side, and I can testify that I served in the most humane and moral army in the world, with the highest code of ethics and human values. The IDF is an army that is level-headed and always keeps as its ultimate highest value human life. The IDF is an army that will bend over backwards to save lives and to ensure that innocent individuals are not harmed, even if it means complicating the military operation. It is possible that there were incidents that did not live up to these standards, but these were the exceptions; they were not the norm and they were not the code by which the IDF is guided. They do not reflect the IDF nor the State of Israel. During the Second Lebanese War, I was badly injured after I was hit by a Kornet missile that was fired by Hizbullah. My fellow soldiers saved my life while under attack; they risked their own lives to save mine. Two days after BTS takes it stand at Harvard University, I will be there to speak to the students with Reservists on Duty. The truth will prevail. The writer, a resident of Nazareth, is an Arab Israeli Christian.