by Benji Preminger
“My home was hit by more than seventy-six bullets. Not the settlement, the house itself. I used to go out as a child and count the bullet holes.”
This is how Amotz Eyal (24) grew up in the settlement of Psagot, overlooking the central Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank.
I first heard of Eyal when I saw a YouTube video of him being interviewed about guided tours in the West Bank. Almost eighteen months ago, he founded Tazpit, an organization whose primary purpose is to document crimes against Jews living in the West Bank. “What motivated me to found Tazpit,” said Eyal, “was a lack of fair media portrayal of the situation. Our voice is not heard outside Israel, and even in Israel it’s not heard all that much.”
Though he partly blames the media for the lack of fair reporting, Eyal doesn’t shy away from criticizing the political right. When asked why there wasn’t an organization like Tazpit till then, Eyal replied: “because the settlers don’t know how to operate [in the media realm.]. The right went to the hills and abandoned everything else. “
To rectify the situation, Tazpit has sixty volunteers equipped with still and video cameras, ready to document and expose any aggression they consider anti-Israeli. “Once you hold the camera and show the facts, you can change things” Eyal said.
Beyond simply documenting active and direct aggressions against Jews, Tazpit is slowly expanding to other fields of activism. On the organization’s YouTube channel, you can find footage of environmental infractions in the West Bank, life-threatening traffic violations on West Bank roads, and other footage meant to convey the reality in the West Bank, as Tazpit sees it.
Not only is Tazpit examining anti-Israel activity on the ground, it also pursues such activity online. Eyal showed me a picture on the Facebook page of a group called “Freedom Will Come to Palestine,” showing what appears to be an Israeli soldier standing over a defenseless young Arab girl, rifle aimed at her head, with the caption: “Share this photo let the world see what is really happening in Palestine.” Reactions to the photo are what you’d expect: 52 people “like” it (assuming the “like” means that they find the photo atrocious) and the majority of comments are similar to Aq Serabut Ad-Dinnie’s comment that “zionis [sic] are shiit [sic]…FUCK OFF….may ALLAh [sic] destroy them.”
But Eyal revealed to me that, upon further inspection, the photo does not show an Israeli soldier. The rifle in the photo is an AK-47, which is not used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and the soldier’s uniform is clearly different from standard issue IDF uniform. It is unclear who the people in the photo really are, who took the photo, and whether they intended for it to be obfuscated in this way, but its effect is clear: a gut reaction of hate towards Israel.
In response, Tazpit is writing articles for newspapers and websites around the world in an attempt to stem the rising tide of anti-Israel propaganda by exposing its falsehood. With the great ease with which people can spread false propaganda online and Tazpit’s limited resources, one has to wonder how effective this effort can really be.
Eyal’s quest for exposing lies does not mean he intends to portray the whole truth. When asked, Eyal confesses that his organization is strictly Pro-Israel, and when confronted with the possibility of encountering violence perpetrated against Palestinians, he admits that he “won’t publish it because there’s B’Tselem [a human rights organization in the West Bank] to publish it. I mean, it’s not my job. I am aware there is… a very radical fringe that commits [violence against Palestinians], but there are, and I’m exaggerating, a few dozens.”
Tazpit’s use of grassroots organizing, digital media, and young activists rings a familiar bell. These tactics have echoed across the Middle East, from the Facebook revolutions of Tahrir square, through the ongoing struggle of the Syrian people, to the continued efforts at toppling the Iranian regime. These young people are empowered by easily accessible digital media and the ability to disseminate information quickly and efficiently to a large audience. Although it may seem that the ideologies of these movements are diametrically opposed, at the core they are one and the same: ordinary people fighting against whatever they consider unjust.
Eyal himself embodies this ideal of political involvement and acting according to one’s beliefs. When asked to describe himself, he unabashedly said: “I’m a Zionist that loves the land of Israel. I’m a settler because I live in my settlement.”
Though common conception of settlers tends to conjure up images of extreme fundamentalists, people imbued with an almost messianic vision of Israel and a burning hatred towards Arabs, Eyal defies crude definitions and stereotypes.
Far from fearing an unknown foe, Eyal has had more intimate knowledge of the other side than expected. “From abroad it looks like in Israel we spend all our time… shooting. [But] day to day, we [and the Arabs] work together and live together.”
Recently, Eyal has been participating in co-existence meeting that bring together Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Instead of warming him to reconciliation, these meeting have only cemented Eyal’s opinions: “The Arab, I know his views, I respect him, I know how to talk to him, but I disagree with him. I understand [the Palestinians’] pain, how difficult it is for them. I just know they’re not right“
Eyal’s criticism is not limited to the Palestinians. During his service in the IDF, his love of Israel was tested in the most extreme manner imaginable. In 2006, following the unilateral eviction of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip (an operation dubbed “The Disengagement”), Israel evicted several Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including the settlement of Amona.
“When I was in the service, my team was in the eviction of Amona,” said Eyal. “I wasn’t there. I told them beforehand… [that] my state and my land are my mother and father, I don’t choose between them.”
Though initially several other soldiers in Eyal’s team also refused to participate, as the day of the operation was approaching, more and more of them succumbed to pressure, until finally Eyal was the only one in his unit to resist this call of duty. Eyal chose to switch units after the operation. His brother was badly injured in the eviction, pronounced clinically dead after arriving at the hospital. At the time of the interview, Eyal said his brother was set to begin combat-officers’ training within the month.
As for the dissonance between the injury his brother received from the military and his passion to serve Israel, Eyal simply replied:”As I told you, the state is us, and we are the state. You just get beat up and move on… I was debating on whether to return to service. It wasn’t simple, but I returned. I said that eventually there’s gonna be a war here and I’ll have to fight, and six months later there was a war [The Second Lebanon War.]. I don’t regret coming back for a second, quite the opposite actually. But if another [eviction] happens, I’ll go and protest again.”
More than anything else, Eyal’s story is that of the state of Israel. It is a story of action and eviction, of complexities of contradictions, and, mostly, of heartache and hope. It reminds us to avoid the generalizations and preconceived notions that have only exacerbated the conflict, and it also reminds us of the great chasm that still lies between us and peace.