We, the soldiers and people of the State of Israel, are deeply pained and outraged by the activities of your group, “Breaking the Silence.” You, a handful of former IDF soldiers, travel abroad to tell foreign audiences we allegedly committed abuses during our IDF service. You claim such abuses are typical. They are not. You claim to speak for us. You do not. You claim we are silenced. But we regularly speak up. No army is perfect and we, too, face difficult issues, but we work through them just as every army in a democratic society does. We will not let you misrepresent us. We have the right and the duty as the majority to testify that your accounts do not reflect what we have seen with our own eyes and what we have experienced.

You say there is need for new self-critical dialogue, but in Israel all voices, including yours, are heard. Yet you deceive foreign audiences by telling them otherwise. You give alleged examples of terrible IDF abuses, but your goal is not to uphold the IDF’s ethic of “purity of arms.” You are aware that there is a chain of command for reporting abuses, and when proven, they are severely punished. Once again you deceive foreign audiences by telling them otherwise.

Your goal apparently is to introduce a debate about Israel’s policy in the Territories. That is a legitimate topic for discussion. But instead of debating the issues, you have chosen to defame the IDF and misrepresent Israel to foreign audiences hoping that you will win support for your political agenda. This is dishonest, sensationalist manipulation. You are simply exploiting foreigners’ ignorance about us and spreading misinformation and hate.

We, the soldiers who served at border patrols, in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza raise our voices in protest. You dishonor yourselves and us, and you demean our sacrifices. We have done everything in our power to uphold the purity of arms and to be true to Jewish ethics during even the most difficult times. We raise our voices to remind you of the tens of thousands of us who have endured physical pain, faced death, been taken hostage and been severely wounded just because we upheld our principles and our core value that all human life is precious. We remind you of the difficult moral dilemmas we face daily because terrorists embed themselves among Palestinian civilians and use them as human shields since terrorists do not abide by the Geneva Convention.

We raise our voices to remind you of the countless times we did not defend ourselves, though it would have been legal to do so, for fear of harming innocent bystanders. We want to remind you of the times we have watched our comrades die or lose limbs or eyesight just because we would not violate the “purity of arms,” as in Jenin where we lost 23 of our young men in face-to-face combat because we would not use aerial bombardment for fear of harming innocent civilians.

We remind you of the large and small sacrifices we make to uphold our standards and preserve life. Parched with thirst in Lebanon, we did not use the residents’ water but instead looked for free water sources, dropping in chlorine tablets to make that water drinkable. We remind you of the tension-laden moments at checkpoints. An elderly Palestinian woman is carrying sacks. She looks like our grandmothers. But is she transporting ammunition that will kill our grandmothers? A Palestinian taxi driver doesn’t seem suspicious. Our commanding officer goes to speak to him. The driver takes out a gun and shoots the young officer point blank through the temple. The cab’s trunk is full of ammunition. You are fully aware that everyday at checkpoints, we must make critical decisions that will determine whether we have adequately protected ourselves, our fellow soldiers and our loved ones even while we try to adhere to the humanistic standards included in our credo of purity of arms and try to be respectful and kind to the Palestinians who, like us, dream of peace.

We raise our voices to remind you of the times we have helped Palestinian civilians, of the times we have let ambulances pass and Palestinians enter Israel for medical treatment even though we know there is a risk these people intend to murder Israelis. Yet you are fully aware that we continue to take those risks regularly because of our humanitarian principles.

We have served with our lives to protect our country, the State of Israel, to protect the rights of our people to be safe—the Druze, the Israeli Arabs, the Bedouin, Christians, Muslims and Jews--and to protect the humanistic ethics we learned from our parents and forebears. Yet your movement tries to disgrace us before the world.

So this is our reply to you—our signatures to show that you, a handful of misguided individuals, are not telling the real story, that you magnify the few exceptions to our standard behavior and miss the total picture which is far greater than your collective experiences and imaginations. We are replying to your misguided words with far more than the 140 politically-motivated academics who signed your letter. We, the people of this land, come to you out of the great tapestry that is Israel—young soldiers, reservists in their thirties and forties, who are people of color, Christians, Arabs and Druze—who believe that Israel has a right to live in peace and security. We come from across the political spectrum but all of us care deeply and have lost and wept and yearned for a peace that we have tried to usher in with dignity, respect and honesty.

For us and for our children, we ask you to cease your destructive and misleading activities.