Defense minister: I never accused controversial NGO of ‘treason’
Ya’alon says gathering classified military info by Breaking the Silence is ‘security offense,’ but only treasonous if handed over to enemy state
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Thursday appeared to backtrack on an accusation that the Breaking the Silence group was guilty of “treason” for gathering potentially classified information, limiting his allegations to “security offenses.”
Ya’alon was commenting on accusations that Breaking the Silence tried to mine operational secrets from IDF soldiers who came to testify on alleged rights violations against Palestinians that took place during their service. The group emphatically denied it held any state secrets.
Breaking the Silence is dedicated to exposing alleged IDF human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories through the testimonies of former combat veterans. The group was last week accused of collecting information about military operations and distributing it abroad. Earlier this week, the defense minister said the NGO could be guilty of treason if these suspicions were found to be true.
“Operational secrets — if use is made of that information abroad, then yes, that is treason,” Ya’alon said Monday while speaking to students at the Kfar Blum high school in the north of the country. “If they keep it to themselves, then it also is.”
But in an interview Thursday with Army Radio, the Likud minister declined to characterize holding the information as “treason,” terming it a “security offense” instead.
“This information, when it is gathered somewhere by an unauthorized person, this is a security offense,” he told the radio, adding that “if this information was handed over to the enemy — that’s treason.”
Ya’alon denied he ever said that simply possessing the information was tantamount to treason.
“I didn’t link it to treason. I said it’s an offense, a security information offense,” he said.
Ya’alon said he first heard of the organization in 2004, when he served as IDF chief of staff. He criticized the group for publicizing the anonymous testimonies of alleged IDF abuses against Palestinians rather than handing them over to the army for investigation.
“Until today, I haven’t received a single testimony,” he said.
Breaking the Silence has no interest in “fixing the army,” he added, accusing it of purely political motives.
Earlier this month, Ya’alon instructed the army to launch an investigation after a Channel 2 television report on Breaking the Silence claimed that the organization was actively seeking potentially classified information about the Israeli military’s tactics and operations.
“I didn’t say they should be shut up, I didn’t say make them illegal,” Ya’alon said on Monday. “I said to check if use of military secret material was made in ways that are prohibited. The investigation has been opened and we will see where it leads to.”
Ya’alon also warned that it was also an offense for IDF soldiers to make use of any classified information they received during military service or to pass it on to unauthorized sources.
In response, Breaking the Silence said Monday that it “doesn’t hold any state secrets and Ya’alon is the first to know that.”
“The citizens of Israel expect their defense minister to give them and their children security and not false and pathetic political incitement,” the group said.
The group has come under fire from Ya’alon and other Israeli officials in the past over its foreign funding sources.
“If you are worried about the morality of the IDF, if you are worried about the way we operate, why do you go and talk about it abroad? That means there is a political agenda here,” Ya’alon said.
Opposition lawmakers have sharply criticized Ya’alon for labeling Breaking the Silence’s actions as “treason” — a term taboo in Israel following its use by opponents of late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in the months before he was assassinated by a Jewish extremist.
“We are all united in the campaign against terror, but I suggest that politicians be careful in their choice of words and in the use of the words ‘treason’ and ‘traitors’ — even when we are deeply opposed to their methods — and to leave that to the Israeli justice system to decide and delineate,” MK Tzipi Livni of Zionist Union said. “We have already seen the price that Israeli society paid for the use of those words.”
Chairman of the Joint (Arab) List MK Ayman Odeh said Ya’alon’s stance toward the group was fascist.
“The witch hunt around Breaking the Silence is another example of the fascist madness spreading across the country,” he wrote in a statement. “The prime minister and his ministers are afraid of any criticism of the occupation policy, whether it is said here or abroad. The fear of criticism drives them out of their minds and they continue to lead the hatred and incitement against more and more of the public.”
The Channel 2 report was based on hidden camera footage collected by the right-wing Ad Kan organization, which seeks to expose what it says are illegitimate actions of human rights groups.
Ad Kan documented a meeting between members of Breaking the Silence and one of its undercover activists, who was posing as a released combat soldier interested in giving testimony.
The NGO interviewed him on his military service and many of the questions directed at the man were of a tactical nature, touching on such subjects as troop deployment, operational methods and mission procedures.
A second undercover video Channel 2 obtained from the Ad Kan organization was filmed at a West Bank demonstration. In the video, one member of Breaking the Silence appears to say that when she was drafted into the military, she was coordinating with Breaking the Silence and had the express intention of collecting information for the group.
