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IDF Wants to Tour U.S. Campuses

by anti-IDF intifada
Does IDF really think it is a good idea to come to U.S. campuses? We are no longer fooled by their policies of ethnic cleansing, and we will let them know this when they come.
Below is an article that talks about IDF reservists going around the US to dispel "rumors" of IDF brutality and war crimes. If the IDF starts a tour of the US, we should be organized to protest them at every campus they set foot on ... I will try to find out if there is a list of the campuses that they intend to tour, but if anyone hears anything, please do post it to the list. (This also exposes some of the terrible politics of the Peace Now group in Israel -- the man who is funding the tour is a founding member of Peace Now).

Jun. 2, 2002 / Reservists go on information duty in US
By MELISSA RADLER
www.jpost.com


NEW YORK When Jonny Alster's paratroop unit left Jenin near the end of Operation Defensive Shield, he was shocked to hear media reports alleging that the IDF committed massacres in the town's refugee camp, and he was concerned that the government was defending itself poorly against charges of war crimes.

"I took it very personally," he said of the coverage, noting that three of his friends were among 13 soldiers killed in an April 9 ambush in the Jenin refugee camp. "It's the biggest dishonor to our friends. We lost 13 soldiers because we are so moral, because we are so cautious, because we went door-to-door" to search for terrorists.

With the aim of justifying Israel's cause and boosting its image aboard, Alster, 39, and two fellow reservists headed to the US last week for an 11-day tour of information duty that has brought them to synagogues, Jewish groups, college campuses, and government offices in New York and Washington.

The trip, the second of its kind, is the brainchild of New York-based businessman and a member of Hillel's board of governors, Joey Low. The first trip, in April, brought three reservists to 15 college campuses, and Low is planning to send small groups to Jewish summer camps in July and August to brief campers and counselors on the situation in Israel.

In the fall, he hopes to organize up to 25 groups and arrange meetings with both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. Low, who helped found Peace Now, single-handedly funded both trips.

The current group is made up of three fluent English speakers: Alster, the father of four who moved to Israel from the US when he was 12; Saul Kramer, a 26-year-old South African who immigrated to Israel six years ago; and Nathalie Narcyz, 21, a student who immigrated from Belgium at age 6.

Walking around New York last week, Narcyz said she wants to humanize the IDF to Jews in the US. Although she finished her obligatory army service last year, Narcyz said she feels she is on the front lines of battle, as one of her classmates at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya lost her parents and grandparents in the Pessah massacre in Netanya.

Narcyz explained that her classmate lived because she left the Park Hotel seder to have a cigarette a habit she had hidden from her family moments before a suicide bomber killed 29 people and wounded 140.

"People have the impression we're racist in Israel, that we shoot kids," said Narcyz. She said she wants American Jews to understand that Israel's military actions are justified as a means of stopping terrorism and allowing Israelis to live normal lives. "It's important to let them know, not to feel ashamed," she said.

Kramer, who was assigned to guard the entrance to the Jenin camp during the IDF operation there, described the frustration of reading media reports that Israel was preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the area after he had personally authorized the entrance of aid.

"What really angered us all was when [UN Special Envoy] Terje Roed-Larsen went in with a convoy of humanitarian aid and made a speech that no humanitarian aid went in," said Kramer. During Larsen's visit, 200 trucks of aid were let into the camp, he said.

Another incident Kramer witnessed was a French media organization trying to ferry a wanted terrorist from Jenin in their press vehicle.

Still, says Kramer, Israel could have argued its cause better, something he has been trying to do in e-mails to friends and family. "The Israeli government was not successful in communicating why they didn't let in the press or the UN fact-finding team," he said.

Alster agreed. "I think we're at fault partially in the way we explain ourselves. We need more emotion and less history. But we've also reached a stage where we don't have to be liked. We have to do what's right for us and keep to our moral standards.

"We have to be true to ourselves so that my 16-year-old daughter can get on a bus."
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