company:breaking

  • After pressure from settlers, Israeli army bars anti-occupation group from Jewish part of Hebron

    The army says the new restrictions are temporary and that a meeting with Breaking the Silence will be held, but the group says no such meeting has been set

    Yotam Berger Feb 26, 2018 1

    The Israeli army has blocked activists from the anti-occupation army veterans’ group Breaking the Silence from entering the Jewish settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron to conduct tours. On Thursday, soldiers prevented a group from visiting the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the city. The army said restrictions on the tours were only temporary.
    There is no barrier at the entrance to the city’s Jewish settlement in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood. Soldiers approached members of the organization in the street and ordered them to leave the city. The soldiers said the order prohibiting entry to the city’s Jewish community was issued by Judea Brigade commander Col. Itzik Cohen, who did not specify a time limit for the order.

  • Explained: How Israel is trying to break Breaking the Silence – and how it could backfire

    What happened after a former Israeli soldier confessed he assaulted an unarmed Palestinian

    Judy Maltz Nov 21, 2017
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.824227

    Following a relatively swift investigation, a former Israeli combat soldier was cleared of allegations that he assaulted an unarmed Palestinian during a tour of duty in Hebron.
    It might have been cause for celebration, had the soldier not been the one to bring the allegations against himself.
    So last week, when the State Prosecutor’s Office alleged that Dean Issacharoff, spokesman of the soldiers’ anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence, had lied about his actions, Israeli right-wing leaders naturally rejoiced.
    >> To whitewash occupation, Netanyahu crew casts Breaking the Silence whistle-blower as bogeyman | Opinion
    The findings, they claimed, were further evidence of what they have been saying for years – that Breaking the Silence is an organization of liars and traitors bent on defaming the State of Israel and the Israeli army.
    skip - IDF soldier accused of accosting Palestinian man

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    As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in a Facebook post: “Breaking the Silence lies and slanders our soldiers around the world. Today this fact received further proof, if anyone had a doubt. The truth wins out.”
    But in the latest twist in a case that has gripped the nation in recent days, Netanyahu’s declaration of victory appears to be premature.
    According to brand new evidence, the state prosecutors who pronounced Issacharoff a liar may have been investigating the wrong incident and questioning the wrong victim.

    Breaking the Silence spokesman Dean Issacharoff, who confessed in a video to beating up a Palestinian in the West Bank while in the Israeli army.Breaking the Silence
    Newly unearthed footage, broadcast on two of Israel’s most popular evening news programs Monday, suggests that the Palestinian whom Issacharoff claims to have assaulted was not the same Palestinian questioned by state investigators.

    It also appears that the Palestinian questioned by state investigators, the one who testified that Issacharoff had not assaulted him, had been referring to a completely different incident.
    In the clip, filmed three-and-a-half years ago by a Hebron resident employed by another Israeli human rights organization, Issacharoff is seen escorting a handcuffed Palestinian who appears to have bruises on his face. How he received the bruises and the circumstances of his arrest are not clear from the footage.
    An account published Tuesday morning in Haaretz by Amira Hass raises further questions about the credibility of the state prosecutors’ findings. In his first interview since the findings were published, Hassan Joulani, the Palestinian questioned by investigators about the incident, said that contrary to what state prosecutors reported, he had indeed been assaulted during his arrest – although by Border Police and not by Issacharoff.
    The blows, he said, were received during a separate incident – not the one cited by Issacharoff in the videotaped account that prompted the investigation.
    Joulani was arrested and beaten, according to this interview with him, in February 2014, during a demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the mass murder of Palestinians at Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs by settler Baruch Goldstein.
    The assault reported by Issacharoff, however, took place after a routine round of stone-throwing.
    On one level, it boils down to the simple question of whether or not a former Israeli soldier lied.
    On a whole other level, however, the case of Issacharoff raises more fundamental questions about Israel’s 50-year-old occupation and its corrosive effects on society, among them: Who is to blame when soldiers serving among a hostile population in occupied territory act badly – the soldiers or the state that sent them there? Should Israeli soldiers speak out about the atrocities they witness during their service at the risk of tarnishing the image of the state? Can an investigation launched by a right-wing politician who harbors hostility toward anti-occupation organizations – in this case, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked – really be undertaken with neutrality?

  • Defend Israel’s anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence -

    Justice Minister Shaked is investigating the spokesman for the army veterans’ group for breaking the silence on what he did in Hebron – nobody else among the countless veterans who’ve told similar stories and worse, just him

    Iris Leal Jun 27, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.797950

    I arrived at the train station in central Tel Aviv last Wednesday and, as usual, got lost. I was en route to the Palestinian village of Sussia to attend an unusual book launch for the Hebrew edition of “Kingdom of Olives and Ash,” a collection of essays about the occupation written by authors from around the world. The ceremony took place in the most appropriate possible place, a hut in a Palestinian village whose residents have been uprooted from their land seven times, while across the road the settlers of Jewish Susya lie in ambush for them night and day, casting covetous eyes on their land.
    As usual, I didn’t manage to find “Venice,” the bus rented by the Breaking the Silence organization, which was waiting at the entrance to the parking lot. A pleasant young man with a beard came to my rescue: Dean Issacharoff, as he introduced himself, the organization’s spokesman.
    The next day, two weeks after Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked urged the attorney general to open an investigation against him, the Hebron police rose to the challenge and, with permission from State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, questioned Issacharoff at length under caution, as a suspect in a crime.
    Issacharoff, a former officer in the Nahal Brigade and a man of honor, did the deed that lies at the heart of the organization to which he belongs: He broke the silence. A video clip disseminated by a group called Reservists on Duty shows him telling about how, during his military service in Hebron, he beat a Palestinian who threw rocks at him. His testimony confirmed what everyone knows at differing levels of denial and self-deception: There is no sterile occupation. Violence is an inseparable part of our military presence in the territories.
    Shaked, who did everything she could to erase Breaking the Silence from our lives by passing legislation to harass left-wing organizations, found a roundabout way of abusing Issacharoff. She didn’t, heaven forbid, order investigations into the piles of complaints about attacks on Palestinians. She displayed no interest in other stories by soldiers about the violence that was an integral part of their military service. Instead, she targeted this case only and hastened to write the attorney general that “in light of the great importance I attributed to preserving Israel’s good name and that of Israel Defense Forces soldiers, I saw fit to ask you to look into the veracity of this incident. If it turns out to be true, the full force of the law must be applied immediately.”

  • British PM May warns Netanyahu: Palestinian land-grab bill is unhelpful
    After Netanyahu announces vote on bill which would legalize expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land to go ahead, May says it will make things more difficult for Israel’s friends.
    By Barak Ravid | Feb. 6, 2017 | 8:09 PM
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.770065

    LONDON – British Prime Minister Theresa May told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that an Israeli bill legalizing the expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land is unhelpful and would make things more difficult for Israel’s friends around the world, Haaretz has learned.

    After his meeting with May on Monday afternoon, Netanyahu told reporters that the vote slated for Monday on the bill will go ahead as planned. He added that he had informed the White House of his intention of putting the legislation to a vote and said he will return from the U.K. on Monday night to participate.

    “I never said that I want to delay the vote on this law,” Netanyahu said. “I said that I will act according to our national interest. That requires that we do not surprise our friends and keep them updated – and the American administration was been updated.”

    Minutes before the meeting, May’s spokesman told the British press that the prime minister planned to tell Netanyahu she opposes settlement activity in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

    While Netanyahu said that May did raise the issue of construction in the settlements, he stressed that the issue “was not discussed in detail, to say the least.” He said he told her that the settlements are not an obstacle to peace and that preoccupation with them is a distraction from the main problems in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    At the start of their meeting, May told Netanyahu that the British government is committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu told May that he shares her desire for peace in the region, but avoided voicing an explicit support of the two-state solution.

    Netanyahu also asked May to stop the British Foreign Office from funding left-wing Israeli organizations, first and foremost the veterans’ group Breaking the Silence, which responded to Netanyahu’s remarks by saying the British government does not currently provide them with any funding.

    Netanyahu and May’s meeting was their first since May took office in July after her predecessor David Cameron stepped down over the results of the Brexit vote held the previous month. Besides the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the two leaders discussed Iran, the war in Syria and Israeli-British relations following the Brexit.

    The bill would allow the state to declare private Palestinian land on which settlements or outposts were built, “in good faith or at the state’s instruction” as government property, and deny its owners the right to use or hold those lands until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories.

    The purpose of the bill, the revised version says, is to “regulate settlement in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and allow its continued establishment and development.”

    The measure provides a mechanism for compensating Palestinians whose lands will be seized. A landowner can receive an annual usage payment of 125 percent of the land’s value as determined by an assessment committee for renewable periods of 20 years, or an alternate plot of land if this is possible, whichever he chooses.

  • The Israeli Generals Who Shoot and Cry and Shoot Again

    It’s nice that some of Israel’s most senior commanders are sounding the moral alarm, but what are they doing to change anything?

    Gideon Levy, Haaretz, May 08, 2016 2:42 AM

    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.718435

    And here they come, those new-old sensitive heroes, soldiers who shoot but cry over it, a 2016 version of the Six-Day War soldiers featured in “The Seventh Day: Soldiers Talk about the Six-Day War.” In the Six-Day War, they were soldiers who shot and cried and were therefore considered moral. After the second intifada that broke out in 2000, there were the old-boy “gatekeepers,” (the former Shin Bet security service directors) who suddenly sobered up and were deemed men of conscience.
    Now it’s the turn of the most senior commanders in office who are sobering up and sounding the alarm, the threesome of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan. It could have impressed and inspired respect had it not been for one tiny problem. The three aren’t doing a thing to change the situation that they are taking exception to.
    These nice and principled military figures are beloved on the center-left, which has always dreamed about ethical generals who make eloquent Holocaust Remembrance Day speeches, but they are nothing more than empty salves to the conscience of the purportedly enlightened tribe.
    Ya’alon, Eisenkot and Golan said some things that are correct and resounding. Ya’alon warned against the army becoming bestial. For his part, Eisenkot doesn’t want soldiers to empty their ammunition cartridges on 13-year-old girls. And last week on Holocaust Day, Golan said he saw concerning signs reminiscent of pre-Holocaust Germany in Israel.
    It’s hard not to appreciate their courage, but we cannot ignore the fact that these are not three observers from the sidelines. All three bear direct and heavy responsibility for the situation that they are criticizing and have contributed for years to bringing it about.
    They head the IDF, which is one of the most major agents of damage to Israeli society. They are in charge of an army most of whose operations consist of maintaining the occupation through brutal force. And anyone who heads an occupation army, who has commanded some of its worst military operations, lacks the necessary moral authority to preach morality — unless they have truly changed.
    Ya’alon is warning about the army becoming bestialized? But it is he who has been in charge of it, first as IDF chief of staff and currently as defense minister. Who can change it, if not him? Eisenkot doesn’t want soldiers emptying their bullets into a girl? He can prevent that. Golan sees signs causing him concern? Some of them originated in the army in which he serves as deputy chief of staff.
    So here’s a short reminder of the pasts of these new prophets of doom of Israel. Ya’alon, the former clarinetist and farmer, was IDF chief of staff during the Defensive Shield offensive in the West Bank in 2002 and for Operation Days of Penitence in Gaza in 2004, operations that sowed horrifying death and destruction. Perhaps it was then that the bestialization of the IDF began. A few days before his comments of rebuke, Ya’alon set upon the veterans group Breaking the Silence, accusing it of treason. Even if he then retracted the accusation, his comments did not counter the bestialization, but rather contributed to it.
    Both Eisenkot and Golan are former commanders of the IDF’s West Bank division. They are well aware of what the occupation looks like and the harm it causes the occupied and the occupier. That same Eisenkot who now doesn’t want soldiers emptying a magazine into a girl was one of the fathers of the so-called Dahiya doctrine, through which the IDF emptied a lot more than magazines into many boys and girls in Lebanon. So why shouldn’t his troops continue to apply the doctrine in Hebron in the West Bank too?
    So why shouldn’t his troops continue to apply the doctrine in Hebron in the West Bank too?

  • Yaalon declares war on rights group Breaking the Silence
    Dec. 15, 2015
    https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769349

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Tuesday that he had banned Israeli veteran group Breaking the Silence from participating in any official activities with Israeli forces, Israeli media reported.

    Yaalon’s statement was made on social media, where he called the left-wing veteran group hypocrites spreading “false propaganda” against Israeli forces and the state of Israel in attempt to “delegitimize” them.

    Breaking the Silence responded to the comment on social media, saying the group has been under attack for the past several months, “through a pre-meditated campaign, in which members of the extreme right-wing, including Israeli parliamentarians and elected officials, along with public figures and right-wing organizations, are trying to silence both us and every debate related to the 48-year-long occupation.”

    • Le ministre de la Défense israélien s’en prend à une organisation de lanceurs d’alerte
      15 déc. 2015,
      https://francais.rt.com/international/12179-ministre-defense-israelien-d%C3%A9fend-armee

      Moshe Yaalon a estimé que l’organisation « Briser le silence » dégrade l’image d’Israël en publiant des témoignages d’anciens soldats qui dénoncent l’occupation de la Cisjordanie et les opération en Palestine.

      Fondé en 2004, le groupe rassemble et publie en effet les témoignages d’anciens soldats qui ont servi en Palestine ou dans les territoires occupés de Cisjordanie. Il révèle ainsi aux israéliens les abus commis contre la population palestinienne, ce qui est souvent difficile pour les médias, fournies en informations par des porte-paroles de l’armée.

      Moshe Yaalon entend donc lutter contre cette organisation et montrer le « prix moral » qu’Israël paie pour l’occupation. Selon lui, « Briser le silence » mène une politique de « propagande mensongère contre les soldats et les l’Etat, et contribue à délégitimer l’image du pays ».

      Surtout, pour Moshe Yaalon, les témoignages relatés par l’organisation « se sont plusieurs fois révélés sans fondement. Cette organisation agit pour des motifs malveillants, et nous devons donc nous engager totalement dans la lutte contre ce groupe. »

    • Il y a trois ans ils se sont attaqués à Btselem qui a survécu. Il faut soutenir « briser le silence » à tout prix. Sans eux nous ne saurons rien. Ils sont le seuls lien avec la vérité et la réalité de l’occupation israélienne en Palestine.

    • Un message de la FMEP ce soir à propos de cette affaire :

      Yesterday, the right-wing Israeli group Im Tirzu released an inflammatory and offensive video attacking four leading Israeli human rights activists as dangerous “foreign agents.” Among the activists targeted were Hagai El Ad, director of B’tselem, and Avner Gvaryahu of Breaking the Silence.

      In response to this attack, the Foundation for Middle East Peace strongly affirms its support for Hagai and Avner, for our grantee organizations Breaking the Silence and B’tselem, and for all of those who work toward the cause of human rights and peace in Israel and Palestine. FMEP’s support for these groups is based on shared values of democracy, equality, and tolerance. Hateful attacks like the one launched by Im Tirzu undermine those values. The activists named in the video represent the best of an open, democratic civil society, something of which all Israelis should be proud, just as we at FMEP are proud to share in the common work of advancing human rights in our societies.

      We call on other pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace organizations in the U.S. to join us in standing in solidarity with our Israeli colleagues against the increasing atmosphere of incitement against Israeli human rights organizations.

      Sincerely,

      Matthew Duss

      President

      Foundation for Middle East Peace

    • La droite israélienne s’attaque à une association d’anciens soldats
      Par Cyrille Louis, Correspondant à Jérusalem | Mis à jour le 16/12/2015
      http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2015/12/16/01003-20151216ARTFIG00297-la-droite-israelienne-s-attaque-a-une-association

      De nombreuses voix pressent le gouvernement de légiférer contre l’ONG « Rompre le silence », dont les vétérans dévoilent, depuis bientôt douze ans, les coulisses de l’occupation en Cisjordanie.

    • Breaking the Silence: Why Take the Message Abroad?

      The left-wing NGO made up of former soldiers found itself at the center of a public storm and under ferocious attack from across the Israeli political spectrum.
      Ilan Lior Dec 18, 2015
      http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.692518

      “Why abroad?” was the most persistent question members of Breaking the Silence were asked this week in interviews, on social media, and in personal messages. The small NGO, more used to being sidelined, found itself at the center of a public storm and under ferocious attack.

      It was accused of slandering Israel around the world and of damaging its international image. The radical right-wing Im Tirtzu movement issued a video accusing the activists of being “moles” – agents for foreign states. That led to a spate of curses and threats on the lives of the NGO’s activists, all former Israel Defense Forces combatants.

      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Breaking the Silence in the Knesset for “spreading libel about IDF soldiers in the world.” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon instructed the IDF not to cooperate with the NGO, whose motives he said were “malicious.” and “blackens our soldiers’ faces abroad.” Education Minister Naftali Bennett forbade the group to enter schools. Even Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid attacked the NGO from the opposition and said it “harms and sullies the IDF abroad, spreading lies about our combatants.”

      Breaking the Silence was set up 11 years ago by combatants who served in Hebron. They recounted their personal experiences from their service in the West Bank and started to gather testimonies from others about the violation of human rights under the occupation. Today, the organization has collected testimonies from more than 1,000 soldiers and has published them in the media, on the Internet, in booklets and at events and exhibitions.

      Today it employs 15 people, who all gave their own testimonies, as well as dozens of volunteers. The organization’s staff guide Hebrew and English tours in Hebron, take part in conferences, meet youth and students and hold demonstrations.

      Over the past year, NGO have members met senior White House officials for the first time. They also took part in events in the United States, Spain, The Netherlands and Scotland and held photo exhibitions in Switzerland. Amidst the storm raised by the group’s activity, the NGO’s founder, Yehuda Shaul gave a lecture in Denmark.

      A visitor takes a picture at the ’Breaking the Silence’ exhibition at the Kulturhaus Helferei in Zurich June 8, 2015.Reuters

      “The absolute majority – at least 85 percent – of the organization’s activity takes place in Israel, in Hebrew, or with Jews,” says director Yuli Novak in an interview with Haaretz. “We do a lot of work with Diaspora Jews, mainly in Israel, with youngsters who come in various groups and meet with us.”

      As for the activity overseas, “the occupation isn’t an internal Israeli matter,” says Novak, who served as an Air Force officer. “The Israeli occupation that we see as immense damaging to Israel, is maintained and supported abroad. Millions of dollars, mostly tax money, are invested in telling the world ‘if you’re for Israel you’re for the occupation.’”

      “We bring to this debate an Israeli, patriotic voice that says ‘we love Israel, but the occupation harms it.’ It’s critical that the world knows there are Israeli soldiers who think the state’s future depends on ending the occupation.”

      Achiya Schatz, a former combatant in the Duvdevan special operations unit, says, “People are silenced and gagged in Israel. Anyone who opposes the occupation is seen as a traitor.”

      “When the settlers’ Yesha Council speaks abroad how come nobody criticizes it? It’s sheer hypocrisy. The attempt to divert the debate to [our activity] abroad is government spin,” he says.

      The NGO’s critics say it strengthens the BDS. “We don’t support BDS, we never supported them or cooperated with them,” Schatz says.

      “Obviously Breaking the Silence statements raise objection. When you see the unpleasant sight in the mirror we put up, your first instinct is to look aside,” she says.

      But “Israel’s problem is the occupation. What makes Israel look bad is that for 48 years we’ve been ruling another nation and not showing any sign that we mean to change it – not soldiers telling what the occupation looks like,” she says.

      Novak says former combatants who have undergone special training in gathering information take the testimonies. Only those that are checked, cross-checked with others and verified are published. “No Breaking the Silence testimony has ever been refuted,” says Shatz.

      Novak refutes the claim that a Palestinian fund gave the NGO more than a million shekels to produce negative testimonies against the IDF. The fund, he says, works from Ramallah, but belongs to European states. “My work is not determined by the donors’ wishes,” he says. “The organization’s activity is entirely open and transparent.”

      The last few days have been especially difficult for the NGO’s people. Their email and Facebook accounts and mobile phones were filled with death threats and curses.

      “Some people fear for their life all the time. We all have families and they’re worried. It’s difficult, but the price of silence is too high,” says Shatz.

      On the upside, the number of supporters and people wanting to give testimony is also rising.

      “We’re in the company of the state’s president, Supreme court judges and other figures the right is trying to silence. So the attack isn’t only us, it’s dangerous to Israel. We’d expect our government and Knesset to stand by our side – not because they agre with us, but because democracy is crumbling,” she says.