News Releases

Israeli Veteran to Speak at USM about Israeli Occupation of Palestine

February 29, 2008

For interviews and information, contact: Rita Kissen, 766-5158 (h) 653-2328 (c)

An Israeli veteran and member of the organization Breaking the Silence, distressed by the consequences of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, will present two slide-lectures at the University of Southern Maine based on a photography exhibit titled “Breaking the Silence,” now at Harvard University. Dotan Greenvald will speak to the students of USM Associate Professor of History Eileen Eagan and USM Associate Professor of Political Science Lynn Kuzma at 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 5, in Room 113 of Masterton Hall on the Portland campus; and at 1:15 p.m., Thursday, March 6, in Room 423-424 in USM’s Glickman Family Library, also on the Portland campus. Both events are free and open to the public and handicapped accessible.  For more information, please call Rita Kissen at 766-5158 (h) or 653-2328 (c). Kissen can also arrange interviews with the speaker.

Breaking the Silence is an organization of Israeli veterans that collects testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifada.  The organization’s “Breaking the Silence” exhibition contains photographs taken by the soldiers themselves documenting what they describe as “a grim picture of questionable orders.” These orders include physical abuse of Palestinian citizens, as well as looting and destruction of property that violate Israel’s own commitment to human rights. In a review of “Breaking the Silence,” a recent editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz said it documented “our own Abu Ghraib affair.”

Dotan Greenvald is a 25-year-old Israeli who lives on a kibbutz near Bet Shemesh and is studying to become a tour guide in Israel.  Like all Israeli youth, Greenvald served three years in the Israeli army, where he was trained as a sniper.  For two of these years he was stationed in Hebron, in the Occupied Territories. Greenvald is among a growing number of Israeli veterans who are deeply distressed by the consequences of the Israeli Occupation for Palestinians, Israelis, and especially for Israeli soldiers themselves. Breaking the Silence proposes no political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, only stresses that one is urgently needed.  The soldiers maintain that the information they present is crucial to everyone’s understanding—right or left—of the costs and benefits of occupation to Israel’s moral fabric.

“Breaking the Silence” was first exhibited in Israel in 2004.  The American tour has included Philadelphia and Boston, where it is currently on display at Harvard’s Hillel Center.

The American tour is sponsored by: Americans for Peace Now; Brit Tzedek v’Shalom: The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace; Harvard College’s Progressive Jewish Alliance; Hashomer Hatzair; Jewschool.com; Meretz USA; the Union of Progressive Zionists; Open Society Institute’s Documentary Photography Project; and the Foundation for Middle East Peace.  Local sponsors include he USM History and Political Science Departments and the Maine Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

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