Breaking the Silence (non-governmental organization)

Shaul, who had completed two tours of duty in Hebron, served as the first executive director of BtS.[19] In 2007 he became its foreign relations director, as the organization began to seek outside support for funding for its programs, in addition to providing direct aid to refusenik members and their families. It began to gain support from some church groups in various countries, primarily in Europe, as well as some direct support from some European governments and international groups.[20]

In 2007 Mikhael Manekin became executive director of BtS.[21] In 2012 Dana Golan was serving in this post. According to the organization's website in 2017, the current executive director is Avner Gvaryahu.

Breaking the Silence is funded through grants, including some from sources in Europe. In 2007, the NGO received a total of NIS 500,000. In 2008, it raised NIS 1.5 million,[22] in 2009, around €275,000, and in 2014, NIS 3.8 million. According to the NGO Monitor website, between 2010 and 2014, foreign sources accounted for 65% of the group's funding.[23] Breaking the Silence published its financial statements as of December 31, 2014, listing major donors who contributed more than 20,000 NIS that year.[24] This included funding from the New Israel Fund, amounting to NIS 229,949,[22] and funding from foreign governments.[25]

Breaking the Silence representatives who traveled to the United States to speak on college campuses and to Jewish communities were sponsored in 2007 by Jewish and Palestinian organizations.[26]

In 2008, BtS told The Jerusalem Post that the British Embassy in Tel Aviv gave the organization NIS 226,589 (c €40,000); the Dutch Embassy donated €19,999; and the European Union gave €43,514.[22] In addition, during 2008, Spain is reported to have provided tens of thousands of euros to fund patrols run by Breaking the Silence in the city of Hebron.[27] The Women Soldiers' Testimonies report, published in January 2010, was funded by The Moriah Foundation, the New Israel Fund, ICCO, SIVMO, Oxfam GB, the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, the EU, and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.[28]

In 2010, according to Moshe Dann, writing in The Jerusalem Post, Breaking the Silence's budget was NIS 3.1 million. It received a total of 1.5 million from the EU, and the UK and Spanish governments. The rest came from Oxfam, the New Israel Fund; Dutch, German, Danish and Irish church organizations; and NDC, the Palestinian NGO that promotes Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns.[29] In 2014, the NGO received the majority of its funding from foreign governments.[30]

Since 2004, Breaking the Silence has run a testimonies collection project called "Soldiers Speak Out." By 2009 they had collected several hundred testimonies, many of them anonymous, from "those who have, during their service in the IDF, the Border Guard, and the Security Forces, played a role in the Occupied Territories."[28]

Breaking the Silence says that confidentiality is necessary because the IDF allegedly prohibits service personnel from speaking publicly about their activities. As is typical of many large organizations, only official military spokesmen are allowed to speak to the media.[25] Breaking the Silence officials say that they can provide personal details of soldiers to official and independent investigations, on the condition that the identities of soldiers are not made public.[33]

In April 2008, BtS released a report about the state of affairs in the West Bank city of Hebron. It included 39 eyewitness accounts by Israeli soldiers who had served there.[34]

The report generated widespread controversy and public debates in Israel about the implications of its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories.[35] Publication of additional collections since then has generated additional controversy and renewed discussions after each event.

Breaking the Silence chairwoman Yuli Novak is accompanied by settler youth during a BtS tour of Hebron, 2015

BtS tour of Hebron, August 2015

Since 2005, BtS has been conducting tours to Hebron for members of the Israeli public and foreign visitors.[36][37] BtS wants the Israeli public to witness the realities in the Occupied Territories.[1] In August 2008, the Israeli police cancelled the tours temporarily because a group of United Kingdom diplomats were harassed by Jewish settlers. The settlers taunted tour members and threw stones and eggs at them.[37][38]

That year, Commander Avshalom Peled, the head of the Israel Police's Hebron district, criticized both Breaking the Silence and Bnei Avraham, another group in Hebron. He said, "The left-wing organizations have become an even greater threat than the anarchists."[39] In June 2008, Peled said that he believed that BtS provoked settlers in the hope of producing a violent response for public reaction.[39]

Bnei Avraham says that it is "committed to 'disturbing the occupation, disrupting the segregation and apartheid regime'."[39] Police said that BtS and Bnei Avraham had held an illegal rally during a Hebron tour on 25 April 2008.

MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) responded to Ynet reporting of police statements in Hebron, saying, "It would seem as though the police are working for the Kahanist and fascist groups in Hebron. I call on the internal security minister to conduct an investigation into the conduct of police forces in Hebron."[39]

In his 2014 book Jewish State, Pariah Nation, American journalist Jerold Auerbach, who has been described as a proponent of right-wing Zionism, reported that some former soldiers expressed antipathy to the Jewish settlers in the West Bank.[40]

BtS sponsors exhibits and lectures in Israel and abroad about military activities in the Occupied Territories, where Israel has had a presence for 50 years. Its representatives are available to speak in community centers and schools.

For example, in April 2017, BtS held a panel discussion at the Barbur gallery in Jerusalem, featuring two former chiefs of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency, a retired senior police commander, and a respected law professor, who spoke about "the corrosive effect of 50 years of occupation on Israel’s security forces and citizens."[41] Ami Ayalon, one of the former Shin Bet chiefs, was "also a commander in chief of the Israeli Navy and is a recipient of Israel’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Valor."[41] The speakers also said they wanted to defend free speech. Outside the gallery, protesters called the panel members "traitors."[41] Prime Minister Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled high-level visit the week of April 25, 2017 with German minister of foreign affairs, Sigmar Gabriel, after he had met with Breaking the Silence representatives while in Israel.[41]

A booklet, Soldiers' Testimonies from Operation Cast Lead, Gaza 2009.[42] was compiled from accounts by about 30 reserve and regular combat soldiers from various units that participated in the fighting. Some 54 incidents were described of "firing of phosphorus gas in the direction of populated areas, the killing of innocent victims [using] small arms, destruction of hundreds of houses and mosques for no military purpose."[43] Soldiers also described using Palestinian civilians as human shields.[43] The BBC said, "If true, that was a clear breach of the international laws of war—which say soldiers have a duty of care to non-combatants—and of Israeli law."[25] The human shield tactic had been specifically prohibited since 2005 by an Israeli Supreme Court ruling.[25]

The accounts said that commanders ordered soldiers to prevent harm to Israeli soldiers by any means necessary. Brigade, battalion, and company commanders conducted morale-building talks that resulted in soldiers having "zero patience for the life of enemy civilians."[25] These soldiers' testimonies exposed gaps between the official policies of the Israeli military and events on the ground.[43]

The IDF dismissed this BtS report. A military spokeswoman said that it was "investigating many of the requests from NGOs and other groups, but when you have a report that is based on hearsay, with no facts whatsoever, we can't do anything with it."[25] The IDF said that past investigations of allegations had found them to be second- or third-hand accounts, rather than the witnesses' own experiences.[25] A Breaking the Silence spokesman said that the NGO verified its information by cross-referencing the testimonies, and confirming accounts from more than one source before publication.[33]

Journalist Amos Harel wrote "while there is no definite way of vouching for the credibility of their reports, it is safe to say that [the testifiers] did fight in Gaza and that they provided enough authentic detail to prove that they are not imposters."[44] Harel also wrote, "On the flip side, Breaking the Silence ... has a clear political agenda, and can no longer be classified as a 'human rights organization'. ... The organization has a clear agenda: to expose the consequences of IDF troops serving in the West Bank and Gaza. ... But this does not mean that the documented evidence, some of which was videotaped, is fabricated."[44]

In January 2010, Breaking the Silence published a booklet titled Women Soldiers' Testimonies that contained 96 anonymous accounts from more than 40 women officers, commanders and soldiers in various units who had served as combatants and in supporting combat roles in the Israeli-occupied territories since 2000.[28] The booklet lists the rank, unit, and location of the soldiers who provided the testimonies.[28] Ynetnews published excerpts from the report, summarizing them as showing the military's "systematic humiliation of Palestinians, reckless and cruel violence, theft, killing of innocent people and cover-up."[45]

In response, an IDF representative said, "These are anonymous testimonies, without any mention of a time or a place, and their reliability cannot be examined in any way. The IDF is a controlled state organization, which learns and draws lessons, and cooperates with any serious body with the shared goal of exhausting any inquiry when such an examination is inquired."[45]

Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldier Testimonies 2000–2010, published in 2011,[46] contains first-hand accounts by more than 100 Israeli soldiers.[47] It was published in the United States as Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000–2010.[48]

David Shulman, Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, described the book in The New York Review of Books as "one of the most important published on Israel/Palestine in this generation."[49]

Elliott Abrams, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that the report contained many accounts of experiences during the Second Intifada. He wrote that the Israel Defense Forces were trying to stop numerous terrorist acts and suicide bombings that were "maiming and killing thousands" of Israeli civilians and criticized the book for failing to describe those dangers.[50] He wrote that "the book's description of a West Bank living in deliberately inflicted misery does not comport with reality."[50]

This is How We Fought in Gaza: Soldiers' testimonies and photographs from Operation 'Protective Edge' -(2014) is a collection of soldiers' testimonies and photographs related to Operation Protective Edge conducted in Gaza.[51][52] The Guardian said that the testimonies "raised serious questions over whether Israel’s tactics breached its obligations under international law to distinguish and protect civilians." Some 2200 Palestinians were killed during the war, including women and children.[53]

In September 2012, in the wake of a Breaking the Silence report that alleged IDF abuse of Palestinian children, Danny Lamm, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, expressed his concern that the Israel Defense Forces were unable to investigate claims because they were presented as "anonymous ... devoid of critical detail and untested by any kind of cross-questioning." Lamm said that BtS was exploiting the testimonies "for propaganda effect".[75]

Dana Golan, executive director of Breaking the Silence, said that the testimonies "meet the highest standards of investigative journalism" and unusual cases are "corroborated by two independent sources." In a statement co-signed by 15 ex-soldiers, she accused Lamm of "pontificating from afar."[75]

In 2009, a BtS spokesman had written that the NGO verified its information by cross-referencing the testimonies it collected, and that BtS would provide additional information to "any official and independent investigation", including the personal identity of the soldiers, so long as the names were kept confidential.[33]

Over the years, Breaking the Silence has sometimes been accused by groups affiliated with the Right, such as Im Tirtzu, of fabricating soldiers' testimonies. This issue was brought up again during December 2016 debate over a proposed Knesset bill to ban groups from state schools that "work to damage" the IDF.[55] This effort was believed to be directed primarily at Breaking the Silence.[55]

In July 2016, the investigative television program HaMakor reported that, of a sample of ten of BtS published testimonies, two were factual, two were false, two were exaggerated, and four were unverifiable.[76]

Raviv Drucker, a supporter of the NGO, said in the HaMakor program that the group's members "act a little bit like a sensational magazine" that does not check the facts thoroughly or writes an exaggerated headline, while claiming to hold higher standards. He said that "many of the stories they published turned out to be true", and that they are holding on to "very sexy testimonies" and not publishing them because they have not yet been able to "fully verify them."[76][3] BtS responded to the program on its website.[77]