Une étudiante irlandaise critiquée pour avoir effectué un stage à Tsahal

"Je me suis toujours intéressée énormément au peuple juif, c'est le cas encore aujourd'hui, et je n'ai donc pas hésité à aller en Israël."

Cliona Campbell [photo], une étudiante de 19 ans de la ville de Cork, se dit victime d'une "campagne de haine" après avoir fait un stage de deux mois à Tsahal.  A son retour, Cliona a écrit un article dans un journal local sur son expérience en Israël, en des termes très positifs, ce qui a déclenché une série de menaces et d'insultes.  "Les gens considèrent que je suis une terroriste", dit-elle.

"She says most of the reaction has been because she spoke highly of her time with the army and maintains her own strong beliefs about their work.

"I got on really well with the soldiers. They were all there for their own reasons and had their own stories as to why they were there. I have a huge interest in the Jewish people and always have had so I had no hesitation about going out there."


Campbell joined the IDF after applying through Sar-El, a volunteering project that agreed to send her over to work for eight weeks.

"I took a crash course in Hebrew first and spent ages preparing. It was a massive culture shock, but very worthwhile. A lot of the days would be spent re-mantling guns and working with the soldiers out in the 42-degree heat".

She also joined a protest against the flotilla to Gaza in May during which the IDF murdered nine passengers on board one of the boats. "I was a bit sad to be coming home, and now I've come back to all this discussion," Campbell says. "Some of the people writing to me and about me say they now see me as a terrorist and that they don't even see me as Irish anymore. I stand up for what I believe and I get hate mail and abuse, and I wouldn't mind if half of those people could back up what they are saying with a logical argument," she says.
Source: Tribune ('People see me as a terrorist')