Dov Yermiya

Dov Yermiya (24 October 1914 – 30 January 2016) was an Israeli lieutenant-colonel in the Israeli Defence Forces. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he was the officer who directed the assault that ended in the conquest of Saffuriyah, and his memory of the event confirms the version of events given by the Palestinians who fled. During the 1982 Lebanon War, Yermiya was expelled from his unit for voicing public criticism of the IDF's treatment of civilians. In his diary account of the artillery and aerial assault on the refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, he wrote that the quantity of bombs used to bomb the area reminded him of World War 2. He turned down an appointment that would have made him Military Governor of Nazareth.

The following year he became famous for his account of that period in his book My War Diary: Lebanon June 5 -- July 1, 1982. Published in defiance of censorship laws, it provoked, according to the publishers, 'widespread controversy when it was first published in Israel', but was ignored by western media. The book criticized Israeli actions during the war, and was first published in Hebrew with the title "Yoman Hamilchama Sheli". It was later translated to English and published by South End Press. The book has been given some attention by western intellectuals, such as the US writer Noam Chomsky. In 1983 Yermiya was the recipient of a Human Rights Award from the Association for Civil Rights for his work in relieving the suffering of Lebanese civilians during hostilities. The Israeli army relieved him from duty. According to Edward Alexander, in a chapter surveying what he calls 'Antisemitism, Israeli-style,' Yermiya is said to have made a profession of giving speeches around the world that draw on an analogy between Israel and Nazi Germany, and to have affirmed in an interview that he and his friends thought as early as 1945 that the Holocaust would "affect Jews in Israel ... for the bad."

In July 2009, Yermiya wrote to friends expressing his despair at the situation in Israel and Palestine, and concluding

Therefore I, a 95-year-old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel, Declare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions, that I shall not sing anymore its nationalist anthem, that I shall stand at attention only on the days of mourning for those fallen on both sides in the wars, and that I look with a broken heart at an Israel that is committing suicide and at the three generations of offspring that I have bred and raised in it.

Yermiya died on 30 January 2016, at his home on Kibbutz Eilon.