{"id":64727,"date":"2018-10-26T16:05:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=64727"},"modified":"2018-10-26T16:55:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:55:10","slug":"26-05-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=64727","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Soldiers Share Their Stories on College Campuses, Face Some Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Israeli Soldiers Share Their Stories on College Campuses, Face Some Protests<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiri Moshe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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My Truth members Naftali Gross and Aviad Yisraeli speak at Mercer University in Georgia. Photo: Naftali Gross.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Former Israeli soldiers are touring US\u00a0college campuses in an effort to raise awareness of the realities of their service, drawing both interested students and occasional\u00a0protests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chen and Aviv, whose last names were withheld for security purposes, spoke on Monday\u00a0at Stanford University in California, at the invitation of the school\u2019s Israel Association. \u201cAsk the tough questions, and learn what it is actually like to live in a country that is the subject of so much discussion in the media and on campus,\u201d organizers advertised.<\/span><\/p>\n

The duo is part of the 11th\u00a0Israeli Soldiers Tour\u00a0sponsored\u00a0by StandWithUs, an Israel advocacy and education organization, which\u00a0brought\u00a0six pairs of Israeli reservists to present on college campuses, high schools, synagogues, and churches\u00a0nationwide from October 14 to October 28.<\/span><\/p>\n

The group hopes that the young Israelis\u2019 personal stories will help put a \u201chuman face\u201d on the\u00a0country\u2019s\u00a0military, which anti-Zionist groups often accuse of war crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tour includes stops at 44 colleges, the majority of which proceed without incident, according to\u00a0StandWithUs. Yet some draw protests, as was the case recently at\u00a0Stanford, where some 11 members of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace\u00a0staged a demonstration. They stood in the back of the room with signs including,\u00a0\u201cthe IDF =\/= democracy,\u201d and handed out fliers denouncing Israeli forces for using \u201cexcessive force against peaceful protesters\u201d engaged in the \u201cMarch of Return\u201d in the Gaza Strip, which\u00a0is organized by the\u00a0Islamist\u00a0terrorist group Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The incident comes on the heels of another protest on Wednesday at Oregon State University, where members of\u00a0the school\u2019s Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER) club blocked\u00a0Chen and Aviv\u2019s presentation with signs\u00a0calling for\u00a0a \u201cfree Palestine\u201d and an end to US military aid to Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis event is part of Israel\u2019s efforts to minimize and erase the ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians,\u201d SUPER argued.<\/span><\/p>\n

Members of Jewish Voice for Peace protest Israeli reservists speaking at Stanford University on Oct. 22, as part of StandWithUs\u2019 Israeli Soldiers Tour. Photo: StandWithUs.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Similar opposition has\u00a0at times faced\u00a0Aviad Yisraeli and Naftali Gross, members of\u00a0My Truth, a group of Israeli reserve soldiers who seek to challenge those\u00a0\u201cwho promote political agendas by cynically slandering\u201d the IDF around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pair \u2014 currently on a tour that has included stops at Penn State,\u00a0Mercer University, Wake Forest University, and Drake University, among others \u2014\u00a0spoke at the University of Minnesota on Thursday,\u00a0at the invitation of the school\u2019s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) group. They were greeted by\u00a0about\u00a0a dozen protesters organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, who congregated on the steps of the building where their event was held.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ilan Sinelnikov \u2014 a founder of SSI\u00a0who attended the\u00a0lecture \u2014\u00a0filmed<\/a>\u00a0one protester raising her middle finger while repeatedly calling the group \u201cf*cking Zionists,\u201d\u00a0before another man derided them as \u201cwar criminals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to invite them in to hear us, and have a conversation,\u201d\u00a0My Truth\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in a statement on Friday, \u201cbut they avoided any eye contact with the Zionists (aka- us), yelled and screamed, cursed and ignored our invitation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe truly feel bad for people who are so afraid of hearing something that might compromise their one sided perspective, that the only way they could protect their world view is to ignore and avoid any conversation,\u201d the group continued.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their lecture nonetheless took place as planned in a classroom with some\u00a015 students in attendance.\u00a0\u201cI\u00a0didn\u2019t choose to become a combat soldier because I have a gun fetish,\u201d Yisraeli explained in his opening remarks, after recounting the personal impact Palestinian terrorism had on him as a child, including through the deaths of his classmates. \u201cI chose to become a combat soldier because that meant protecting myself, protecting my values, protecting my family \u2014 and coming here as part of this organization to share these experiences with you is part of what we do to tell you that we do share the same values.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want peace, we all want safety, we all want freedom,\u201d he continued, \u201cand we just need to fight to protect those values.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Israeli Soldiers Share Their Stories on College Campuses, Face Some Protests Shiri Moshe My Truth members Naftali Gross and Aviad Yisraeli speak at Mercer University in Georgia. Photo: Naftali Gross. Former Israeli soldiers are touring US\u00a0college campuses in an effort to raise awareness of the realities of their service, drawing both interested students and occasional\u00a0protests. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64727"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64738,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64727\/revisions\/64738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}