in the fall two thousand and nine a delegation of war resisters from the united states arrived in israel palestine to meet with jews and palestinians organizing against the israeli occupation and the group calling itself dialogues against militarism or dam or five antiwar n g i resistance organizers damns trip to israel palestine was an effort to bring together u s and israeli war resisters to strengthen connections and continue to build international solidarity as well as build support for palestinians resisting occupation while exploring the systemic links between the us war on terror and the israeli occupation the delegation also hope to hear the stories and bring home the lessons of israelis working to demilitarize their own society to further these goals it was decided that dan would work with since it's founded in one thousand the state of israel has maintained a large military force made up primarily of the israel defense forces for idea to the palestinians israel's formation is known as the catastrophe as it was largely based on their displacement and the hundreds of thousands from their homes and into indefinite exile as the decades of war and on the israeli occupation has to continuing to subjugate the daily lives of millions of palestinians while illegally expanding into internationally palestinian land additionally with u s support israel has grown to become a dominating regional power threatening the news of military action against neighboring states the result is increasingly militarized conditions in people's daily been doing since the military military conscription in israel has been alive since the state's founding everyone is supposed to serve three years for men too for women then until the age of forty five you were in the reserves  and in making us feel every day that we're the victims here and that we're in an emergency and if we're not in an emergency we're going to create them urgency we're going to going to cause we're going to bomb lebanon we're going to we're going to create the situation that no one will be able to stop and think about where all of it started the fifth largest army in the world and people feel like the victims of the situation and this is just building therefore is condemnation grows against israel israeli society has reacted by reinforcing its own worst fears with the knowledge that you have the jewish history of persecution holocaust and you have the ar with the dominating belief that israel needs to stand tough against its ever present enemies conscription remain standard policy making most of the population military veterans an experience that often exacerbates these attitudes of fear and aggression connected for the israeli society for self sandy and every eighteen year old into the army having them grow into a position where they don't ask questions but they just follow orders and seen that happen to me friends and so this is the first great reader which is still used in israel today and what it says is the army's coming the army coming down that is reading down is running and the fact is that israeli it's not only about it's not only that if you're off school you know the ministry of education measures in rank schools by how many students and list to become combat soldiers and in two thousand and nine the decision was made to tie school funding to rates of i d f unless states education system thousands of soldiers even teach classes in public schools being told by soldiers that got to listen the written from so army will to have to say we have a  they're great in military uniform women in the israeli army often fill this role of the soldier teacher in addition to other traditional roles for female soldiers such as secretaries and clerks although these jobs are still overall the norm for female conscripts in the  publicly refuse to serve through an open letter to the israeli public this is become an annual act of resistance to the draft and the continued occupation of palestinian lands in the group inside were you know you'd have to go to the army  be hard but i do think it's the right thing to do or is one week detention was immediately followed by her first imprisonment during this time dan was able to join a visit organized by words friends and supporters to the prison where she was being held after her release on november fifteenth two thousand and nine or was sentenced to prison for a second time and then the third all together she had served a total of three months when she was released in mid january two thousand and ten immediately following her release m timor sent to prison despite the punishment israelis continue to refuse in addition to public refusals exemption on mental health grounds and other types of deferments are increasingly popular in israel this is known as a grey refusal basically a quiet refusal to do in the military when including a large number of draft exempted orthodox jews only around half of young israelis are completing their mandatory service the lowest numbers mean in two thousand and seven fifty six percent either not enlisting or finding a way out of the army during their service lots of us are finding and taking their exemptions many attribute the rise in non english meant to a lack of real or perceived military threat to israel's existence if you take my parents believe th or not killing applied to the draft so i'm going to and tomorrow but more people go to the army for financial ones for personal reasons for personal gain or for personal to avoid person service because of conscientious objection the refusenik movement really began to develop during the one nine hundred eighty s in response to the israeli invasion of lebanon when in addition to shiny steam refusing to enlist over three thousand army reservists refused appointment under the banner of cobol meaning there is a limit today there are still many israelis who joined idea only to discover the realities of balky patient leading to a refusal of further service of so called self defense they become just acts of murder because you lose the ideology excuse to kill people and then it's really really simple certainly syncs that they government going around the streets doing it you know the uniform the helmet the rifle walking a lot of that but i think the most important thing that brought me to ram today was the medal understanding that it's three four months i'm going to give back my understand you know talking about our unit in hebron is not even open in this country so you have a draft of people sort of the compactor side since that first exhibition breaking the silence is documented and made public the testimonies of hundreds of current and former i soldiers about what they did and saw during their time in the military the group gained international attention and further israeli condemnation when it published accounts of active duty soldiers immediately following the two thousand and eight invasion of gaza corroborating and further expos atrocities committed by the israel defense forces among many other activities members of breaking the silence spend much of their time speaking directly to israeli youth before conscription sharing their own stories of soldiering in an occupying army being there right now i mean just to tell the story of what we did you sent us there we went there we did we come back there's one thing will demand from you sit down listen to what we did in your name we're not going to tell you if it's right or wrong you might even say that's right but this is what we did in your name and this is we're sure your children are doing in your name and this is what everyone is doing mchale and yehuda along with other organizers also take israelis on guided tours to where they formerly served have drawn in the south iran hills an occupied west bank with most of the occupied territories off limits to israelis have ron or alcohol as one of the only places for israelis to experience what life is like for palestinians living under israeli military authority this is because while the west bank is full of settlements have drawn is the only palestinian city to have a settlement inside of it