The various forms of inequality

14th December, 2004

Nitzan really knows how to piss me off. He never shuts his mouth. He's like the complete opposite of me in every way, and even though he's in my team, there are times that I just can't stand him anymore.

This time he was the worst! When we were at the roadblock, he laughed so much at Angel and at my relationship with her. "Are you telling me you're not dating any girls while you're... 'waiting' for her? You're so naive, it's unbelievable! She's probably f**king with dozens of guys and laughs out loud behind your back!"

It really amused him to know that while I bought her a DVD as a gift for her birthday, she sent me a self-recorded cassette on mine, which did not even arrive.

Matan joined the laughter and the argument against me. We discussed long distance relationships, the issues of trust and the possibility of cheating on the partner.

I could not convince them that I was right. In the case of my relationship I know I was, but they thought otherwise.

Like I care what they think? Let them think anything they want! I will prove to everyone that I was right! They'll see... When 2 people truly love each other, the sky is no longer the limit.

15th December, 2004

Another roadblock... I was standing behind the two vehicle selectors in the security standpoint and talking to Daniel, when I suddenly noticed something strange going on on the road ahead of us: A truck was coming towards us in excessive speed, driving like crazy, passing other cars in zigzags and signaling.

"Look!" He stopped the truck right before entering the roadblock and then stepped outside. A moment later we saw a Palestinian taxi-minibus stopping next to the truck. The guy who came out of the minibus was bleeding in his head. Blood was all over the left part of his face.

"Don't shoot!" We heard a voice from a megaphone - it was coming from a police jeep. Only then I noticed Matan loading his weapon, ready to shoot someone.

The Palestinian guy stopped. The truck driver was approaching his with some big metalic tool in his hands. It looks like a steering wheel lock.

The policemen intervened on time. They ran over there and prevented the two from killing each other. An Ambulance came about 10 minutes later. Then some other police guys came by, wearing gloves and taking all the evidence.

A short while later, we knew all about this story: The Palestinian threw stones on the truck of an Israeli-Arab guy, breaking two windows. The angry Israeli-Arab guy took that tool and hit him on his head. Now that I remember, blood was all over his shirt... Then they had a chase which came to an end at this roadblock.

Everyone who asked about the incident reacted by saying "oh, good!" the moment they heard it was a fight between 2 Arab guys.

It really bothered me to see some soldiers act in patience whenever they confronted Israelis in the roadblock, while acting in anger and hostility if it were a vehicle with Israeli-Arabs or Palestinians. Why the difference? Daniel and Matan both told me that they consider Arabs to be inferior to Jews. That Arabs deserve to be treated differently...

Somehow I think they feel the same about us, but I can't help wondering why people have to be so narrow-minded about this.

I know that everyone who carried out attacks on Israelis was from Arab origin, that there's no point to suspect Israeli Jews on roadblocks and inspect their cars. But I don't think that all Arabs deserve the same treatment just because they're Arabs.

I do agree that we as soldiers should be careful and prevent any attempts to hurt the Israeli population, but I don't think that to do that we have to compromise our manners.


* * * * *

My bro was talking with me on the phone and we ended up discussing my personal life. He told me I can't just pack the bags and leave the country once I'm out of the army. I should go study in the university, especially since I'm getting 24 grand from the army as scholarship. (Every combat soldier who's finished 3 years of military service gets about 24,000NIS that he can only spend on specific things + almost a 8,000NIS release grant) I agreed to everything he said. "We'll see...".

He said the army is the right place to think about my future. "Right. Anyway, I'll be home next week and we'll talk. Cya!"

For over an hour I thought about it... I must get myself a bachelor of science or something, but can I really wait another 3-4 years for Angel?! I wanna be with her!

If she is not going to come to live with me in Israel, I'll have to choose between her and... my career? I don't know what I'm gonna do. Should I move to Germany and study there? It all sounds crazy!

16th December, 2004

I'm still thinking about it. Should I find myself a girlfriend in Israel? But I love Angel terribly! Does love block my rational thinking? But I'll never find anyone like her!

She might not be the prettiest and sexiest girl on the planet, but her smile, her love to me, the things that we have in common and the everlasting will to devote our whole lives for each other leave me in no doubt that she's the one for me.

If only she'll want to live in Israel...


* * * * *

Today we had a policeman present at the roadblock. He was inspecting vehicles for other reasons... He'd ask us to direct certain vehicles for inspection. Then he'd write fines to some of them, for not wearing a seatbelt and whatever. Matan told him that he'd gladly send Arabs to inspection, but not Israelis.

The policeman asked Matan if there are any left-winged soldiers in the roadblock. Matan pointed his finger at me. The policeman looked at me and said: "I can see by his facial expression that he's a leftie". Matan looked surprised and started laughing. I wonder if he laughed at the policeman's stupidity or at my facial expression.

Am I left-winged? I guess all humanists automatically fall into that category. But there's difference between supporting justice and equality, and the political left. I'm not pro-Palestinian. I'm sure that if I were a Palestinian I would look at Palestinians the same way I look at guys like Matan.

During our shift, the policeman told us different stories of his past experiences with Arabs. There was one Palestinian worker who had no documents allowing him to work in Israel or even enter the Israeli territory (they're often referred to as "Shabahim"), he was caught by this policeman and refused to tell him the truth, making up stories about who he is and why he is in Israel. The policeman looked around, made sure nobody's looking and then he beat the guy until he told him the truth.


* * * * *

Me and Matan had so many discussions during that roadblock shift. We talked about God, about religious Jews, Russian immigrants. It made me feel even sadder.

It feels like the whole world had lost it. Why am I feeling sad at the sight of people being treated unjustly? Will it ever end? There will always be people like that and thus there will always be crimes and injustice. What's the point of feeling sad about it all the time? I should be happy and look at the bright side of this world, always try to be cheerful and hope for the best. That's what's worth living for. I love this world, I love all the people, and especially I love Angel.

Bless this world and may there be less suffering..

27th December, 2004

The free week was just what I needed! I feel like I've been reborn after 16 days in the army.

Prior to the vacation, I collected 5 shekels from every soldier in the battery in order to buy a DVD player (with DivX support) for our "club". We currently have a sattelite TV, but not often can you find anything interesting to watch. With a DVD player, everyone could bring various movies and series to watch, so it's definitely worth the 5 shekels everyone's paying for it.

I've had this free week to buy the DVD. I've been to various shops, but then I called Lior (who is also responsible for our battery's logistics) and he said that I should collect a few more shekels from everyone, because he can't afford to give me additional 200 NIS as he previously thought. Argh! Now I'll have to collect some more money from everyone.

In 2 months it's going to be February. March '02 soldiers are going to be released. We only have 2 of them in our battery. One of them is a "senior" soldier with privileges. There are 6 of them in the whole battery - they have a separate room, they're released home more often than others, they don't do regular guard shifts, they don't work in the kitchen or anywhere else, they don't clean the base every morning and evening and wake up early, they have their own Sat-TV, they can bring anything they want including a DVD and a PS2, but they also have bigger responsibilities... slightly bigger.

Who's going to take the place of that March '02 senior? Probably not me. I really wanted to be promoted to a senior, but there are too many candidates for the job. You have to be socially popular in the battery (everybody's friend), you have to initiate and devote yourself to the battery... am I?

All my commanders and officers told me that I'm a good candidate, but I found out that they told that to many other guys as well. 2 weeks ago, Haim, one of the soldiers in the battery, told me that in his opinion I don't fit the job, that being a good soldier is not enough.

I still remember how I stayed at night after a battery evening and washed all the dishes for over an hour without anyone telling me to do so. They all went to sleep, nobody really cared. I used to be the one to clean everything and do all the extra work, telling myself that one day I'll get something in return. Now it looks like I was wrong. Maybe it helped me with my flight to Germany... It surely was more important than becoming a senior! Yair later told me that it was really hard for them to authorize the flight, that they made it happen mostly because I am a good soldier.

Soldiers from March '04 have joined our battery. 3 of them have joined my team.

28th December, 2004

I'm being sent to a nearby base to guard there at the gate. It's the base where all the desk-workers of our regiment are located. Logistics, communications, munition, machinery workers, cooks, truck drivers etc. They can't even guard themselves now?

They claim that they don't have enough soldiers who are "qualified" to guard on the weekends! That's because they go home every thursday and only few of them stay the weekend. Argh!

There is also a platoon of Karakal over there. It's a platoon that's composed mostly of female combat soldiers. They volunteer to serve 3 years instead of 2 and they do about the same things that we do, except for the artillery stuff.

I really respect them for that, although I don't think girls should do this kind of service. Not because they can't do it, but because they'd better preserve their health and sanity. Somebody has to, right?

When I was at the dining room, I overheard a conversation between some desk-worker and a girl from Karakal. He said: "I'd like to see how you would handle the combat service as a male!". And that kind of belittlement comes out of the mouth of a desk worker, who comes home every weekend and does nothing but scratch between his legs all day long?!

I once wanted to be a desk-worker, now I'm glad I'm not. Some workers are really shameful. There are so many of them who don't care about anyone but themselves, who don't do anything useful during their military service, workers who cuddle all day long with their female co-workers, workers who complain whenever they have to guard 4 hours a day! One should listen to their pitiful complaints about their conditions in the army.

Asi, the new guy from my team, is the one that I'm swtiching places with. He was guarding here even during the week?! He showed me my room - there were 2 desk-workers there. One of them made sure I don't sleep in that room. He asked me to move to an empty room where there's no heating and mattresses. I moved there but took a mattress from his room, but the next day some worker came back from home and took it from me, saying that it's his own!

After a guarding duty at noon I went to the kitchen just to find out that there was no food left for me. Lucky for me, a friend of mine is a commander at this base. He convinced the cook to make me some food.


* * * * *

I'd hoped I'd be released for the new year. One of our battery's officers told the soldiers to make a list of all the Russian-born soldiers who wanted to get home for the holiday. Every Russian-born soldier was eventually on that list.

Israeli-born don't celebrate the new year. It's even called here by the name "Sylvester" - a Christian who murdered a lot of Jews back then.

That's stupid! It's not entirely a Christian holiday. It's an international holiday! The whole world celebrates it!

In the end, it was decided that we won't be released home for the holiday. As a result, 2 problematic Russian guys have escaped! One of them is a new guy from my team, his name's Slava.

Because of their selfish acts, our battery commander considered calling back 2 soldiers from their vacations in order to fill the gap.

Eventually, it was decided that we'll manage despite the shortage. We had to guard a few hours more each one, thanks to those 2 a**holes.

Most of the desk-workers went home for the holiday, even those who came to the base yesterday!

Ronen was brought here to guard with me as well. We guard here while all the desk-workers, including those who are "qualified" to guard, left home.

31st December, 2004

My mom visited me today and brought me some food.

I called Angel today.

I didn't celebrate the new year in any way. No one to celebrate it with. I only called some of my friends and family and wished them a happy new year.

I wish everyone a happy new year, 2005!

It's the first time in my life that I miss this holiday. I can't believe it's 2005 already! :)