Dear Editor,
The IDF colonel, Mr. Bentzion Gruber, began with a film clip entitled “8 Seconds.” It was a detailed depiction of the time that a soldier has to decide if he will shoot or not.
It was, in fact, a suicide-bombing mission. Within five minutes of his provocative defense of the soldiers refusal to shoot, audience members stood up and began yelling, “Is this Gaza? This is Gaza!” The colonel continued to describe how the terrorist was attempting to blow up a school bus full of children.
Again, audience members (including students) started to yell and accuse him of lying, while other audience members told Palestinian responders to, “go back to Gaza!” At this time, ISIME Director Deborah Schleuter did warn that the Denver Police were on their way to escort people out of the event.
Mr. Gruber continued with the IDF code of ethics. The first code was that of ‘Distinction- don’t harm the innocent,’ meaning children and civilians who are not involved in the conflict. During this time, a Palestinian student stood up to voice her opinion and she was pushed by another woman…this was when it got a bit scary to think of anything violent erupting. Still, after a few audience members were escorted out of the event, the IDF soldier went on to discuss other codes of ethics in the Israeli Defense Force- ‘Necessity- force should be used solely for the purpose of accomplishing the mission’ and ‘Proportionality- collateral damage in proportion to the threat.’
It should be noted: His footage was not well-documented as at least one professor contested that it was an abomination to the academic tradition at DU, stating that this speaker was not providing an academic or intellectual basis for any of his documentation and that it was offensive to him as a DU scholar.
Mr. Gruber carried on about diffusing the ‘lies’ of using Mosques as shields and children as well. But it wasn’t until he made the most provocative remark of the entire evening that all hell broke loose. Colonel Bentzion Gruber stated clearly, “Not every Muslim is a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim.” At this, even the Director of ISIME stole the microphone from him and requested that he apologize for the racist remark. He did, in fact, apologize only so far as proclaiming that he was asked to in order to continue on speaking.
Questions were taken, although the majority (all but 1) were pro-Palestinian and were accusatory of his basis for the presentation. I inquired, “I am a peace activist and I came here tonight to learn about the IDF, but I did not learn anything. What is the point or goal of your presentation? You say that you are for peace but how are you advocating for peace by provoking dissension?” He responded that he was diffusing the lies that infiltrate the media about the IDF. He dismissed my question about peace.
Karen Jernigan
Graduate student
Student director of the Middle East Discussion Group
