NIF: ‘Breaking the Silence’ being smeared

By Daniel Sokatch

NEW YORK — The next chapter in the developing story of the attempt to marginalize Israeli human right activists is now unfolding in Israel. This time, it centers around an “expose” aired on Israel’s Channel Two last week about interviews that Breaking the Silence did with demobilized soldiers. The “smoking gun” is a bogus allegation that these interviews endanger Israel by revealing classified information about IDF operations.

Three key facts tell you what you need to know about the story:

(1) Breaking the Silence is a responsible organization. All of their publications are cleared by Israel’s military censor to ensure that nothing harmful to Israel’s security is revealed.

(2) Time and again extremist agitators have posed as soldiers to try to get false information into the group’s publications. They failed. The lengthy interviews that Breaking the Silence conducts with soldiers who offer their accounts helps them ascertain that the testimonies are real.

(3) This incident is a clumsy attempt at entrapment. The videos at the heart of the “expose” feature soldiers dispatched by a settler-funded organization to infiltrate Breaking the Silence in an attempt to trip up its staff.

Sadly, hardline politicians are exploiting this “expose” to make some headlines of their own and to incite against a group they disagree with. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has alleged that Breaking the Silence had somehow “crossed a red line.” Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has ordered an “immediate probe.” Tourism Minister Yariv Levin called the group “traitors.”

Israel deserves better leadership than this. The Prime Minister and the Defense Minister should be working to defend Israel — not stoking greater divisions or inciting against a legitimate voice within Israeli society.

We’ve seen this type of attack play out before, and not only in Israel. Here in America, tendentiously edited videos were used to defame Planned Parenthood, with conservative politicians jumping to pile on with criminal investigations, Congressional hearings, and legislation to defund the group.

Right now, it’s happening to Breaking the Silence. And I think that you already know why: This group of former Israeli soldiers who speak candidly about the toll of the occupation is a threat to the agenda of the far right, and to all of those who want to extend Israel’s rule over millions of Palestinians.

I want you to know that this is precisely why NIF supports Breaking the Silence in its efforts to remind the Israeli public about the terrible impact of the occupation. The occupied territories exist behind a wall, both physical and psychological, that hides its reality from most Israelis. The fate of the territories — so critical for Israel’s survival as a democracy — has all but disappeared from the political debate.

NIF has always stood for democracy, for an end to the occupation, and for human rights. The smear campaigns will never deter us. If need be, we will turn to our Emergency Grant Pool to make sure that Breaking the Silence has the resources it needs to fulfill its important mission.

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Sokatch is Chief Executive Officer of the New Israel Fund (NIF)