Israeli anti-occupation group in spotlight
TEL AVIV, Israel - Former Israeli combat soldiers who were thrust into the center of a diplomatic row between Israel and Germany say the sudden international spotlight has given them a bigger stage to speak out against Israel’s 50-year rule over millions of Palestinians.
Breaking the Silence is a group of ex-soldiers-turned-whistleblowers who view Israel’s openended occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state as an existential threat to their country.
Since 2004, the group has collected testimony from more than 1,100 fellow soldiers who describe the dark side of that rule, including seemingly routine mistreatment of Palestinian civilians stripped of basic rights. The veterans hope such accounts will car-ry weight and spark public debate about the moral price of the occupation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top officials in his nationalist government have a starkly different view. They have branded Breaking the Silence as foreign-funded subversives who are trying to defame Israel and its military.
Netanyahu even seemed willing to rattle Israel’s relationship with key European ally Germany to score points against Breaking the Silence, which has 16 paid staffers, several dozen volunteers and an annual budget of about $2 million.
Two weeks ago, he said he would not receive German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel if the visitor stuck to plans to meet with Breaking the Silence. Gabriel chose the soldiers instead. Netanyahu, who also serves as for- eign minister, said that shunning visitors who meet with Breaking the Silence is now official policy.
The dispute cast a shadow over what would otherwise have been a routine visit to Israel by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier this week.
In a speech in Jerusalem on Sunday, Steinmeier did not refer to Breaking the Silence by name, but said that civil society groups “deserve our respect as democrats, also at times when they are critical of a government.”
Steinmeier, who met with Netanyahu on Sunday, said he disagreed with the decision not to receive Gabriel. Steinmeier said he decided against canceling his Israel trip because it might have allowed relations to “move deeper into a dead end, which would have harmed both sides.”
Yehuda Shaul, a co-founder of Breaking the Silence, said the re-cent attention has been a mixed blessing.
The focus on the diplomatic dust-up “diverts a lot of attention from the real issue, what goes on in the occupied territories,” he said in an interview.
“On the other hand, it gives us more stages to speak about it,” said Shaul, citing more media attention and public speaking invitations that draw larger audiences.
Israelis have been bitterly divided over what to do with lands captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem immediately after the war and retains overall control over the West Bank, with enclaves of Palestinian self-rule. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and has enforced a border blockade since the Islamic militant Hamas seized power there two years later.