And what happened a few weeks later after this event when I brought these children to hospital is that the commander of the Air Force and the government decided to assassinate the leader of the Hamas in Gaza Strip, Salah Shahade. And they ordered a F-16 with a one-ton bomb, that shot -- that dropped this bomb on the house of the Hamas leader in Gaza Strip, killing with him 14 innocent civilians, 14 innocent people, including nine babies. And although I didn’t drop this bomb and I didn't shoot in my life anyone, but I felt that this, me being part of this system that is causing this harm and this suffering and this killing to innocent people, it's just the same like being a terrorist in another organization. And those kids who were killed by my fellow pilots and these kids that were killed by this Palestinian fighter are just the same.

And it took me a while to understand that not just these guys down in the wedding were disconnected to reality, but also in the cockpit here inside me was a lot of ignorance, a lot of things that I didn't know. And then you start to figure out and to learn and to find out all this half-side history lesson that you didn't get. And I realized that in order to change and not just to find a solution for myself, for my soul, for my being able to live with myself, I have to do something publicly. And I went from one pilot to another, used my connection to the Israeli Air Force military by, you know, people knew my father and I lived in a neighborhood with a lot of pilots, and I found more than a hundred pilots that agreed to cooperate by being silent about that. Just a few of them agreed to sign the petition that I wrote.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “being silent”?

YONATAN SHAPIRA: It took us about three to four months to recruit all these co-signers on this letter. When you want to do something that will be strong enough, that will shake the Israeli public opinion and the government and the military, you want to find not just one or two pilots who are willing to refuse. So we found brigadier generals, colonels, Air Force squadron commanders, Apache pilots, F-16, F-15, Cobra, all kind of squadrons from the Israeli Air Force, and all these guys agreed to keep silent while some of us are willing also to put their names on this petition and to refuse publicly.

And as a result of this petition, there was a big uproar in Israel, and all the signers were called to an interview with the commander of the Air Force, General Halutz, who is now the commander of the Army who is actually leading these criminal attacks on Lebanon. And in this interview with him, he told me that he's going to discharge me from being a pilot in the Air Force, and I told him that actually I’m willing to be charged by him. Don't just discharge me, but charge us all in charge of refusing to legal orders, because we are willing to sit in jail if they can show in court that these orders of killing suspects and, by that, killing innocent civilians, is legal. And, of course, they preferred just to let us go, and no one of us was in prison.

And since then, many of us became very active in the anti-occupation movement and in the anti-apartheid movement in Israel. And that's why I’m here today talking to the American people, talking to the Jewish community, trying to convince them that it's us who have to lead these demonstrations around the world. It's us Jewish people and Israelis and former fighters, former combatants that took part in these wars, to lead these demonstrations who call for international pressure, who call for sanctions against the Israeli government who is doing these cruel things and brutal things in Lebanon. It will harm us Israelis, it will harm us Jewish people, if you will not wake up now, because it will not continue forever, and someone has to put an end to this.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Yonatan Shapira, a former captain in the Israeli Air Force Reserves, initiated the group of Israeli Air Force pilots who refuse to fly attack missions in Palestinian territories. We're going to go to break. When we come back, I want to ask you more about this one-hour meeting you had privately with the head of the Israeli Army currently in Lebanon, and we're also going to bring on a Palestinian fighter, a former Palestinian fighter, who is in the group that you have co-founded, Combatants for Peace. He was in an Israeli jail for some seven years.

 We continue our conversation with the Israeli soldier, the former captain in the Israeli Air Force Reserves, Yonatan Shapira. In 2003, he initiated the group of Israeli Air Force pilots who refused to fly attack missions on Palestinian territories. He also co-founded the group Combatants for Peace. In a minute we're going to go to East Jerusalem to speak with a former Palestinian Fatah fighter who is in the group with Yonatan, but you mentioned this private meeting you had with General Halutz. We see him on the news a lot now talking about Lebanon. What transpires? Just you and him?

YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah, we were -- me and him -- in his commander's room, and he's a very charismatic person. Therefore, I think he's very dangerous. In that meeting, we discussed the whole issues and the situation in our country. I told him that I believe that these are war crimes and I do not want to participate in them and I think that he should, as well, not participate and not order any people to go to participate in those missions. I told him also that I believe that if Israel decided to occupy Palestinians, Israel is responsible for the life of the civilians, if Israel is responsible for the life, not just of the Israelis, but also the Palestinians. And then, in answering, he told me how he sees the different value of human beings, when Israeli citizens is on top, then Israeli soldiers, then Palestinian civilians and then Palestinian fighters.

And as a Jewish person who is also from a family that suffered lots and lost a lot in the Holocaust, and I was raised to be aware and not to follow any kind of racist leaders, I think that now it's very important to be mentioned that these leaders, this guy, this specific commander, is so dangerous for us, and Jewish people from all around the world must wake up and understand that in order to support Israel, in order to make sure that Israel will continue to exist, we must stop these guys. We must stop them, because now they continue to lead soldiers.

Young soldiers are being recruited today, and I saw just in the news how the commander, the same commander, is receiving them and hugging them, and sometimes I feel like it's something like sacrifying some [inaudible], some kind of worshiping, and in some way -- if I can say just last thing about the Jewish community here in the United States, some people say that instead of worshiping God, the Jewish God, the Jewish community here -- not all of them, but some of them -- are worshiping Israel, and this is very dangerous.