Livni: Government ‘persecuting’ NGO to distract from its own failures

Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni lashed out at the government on Saturday for launching an investigation into a controversial NGO, a move she said was intended to divert attention from its own failures of providing security for Israelis.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an investigation into the activities of Breaking the Silence, a group dedicated to exposing alleged IDF human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories through testimonies of former combat veterans, following a damning television report this week.

“This persecution is intended to divert public attention from the fact that in the past year there have been more than 200 attacks and the government has no solution on the horizon,” Livni told a cultural event in Givat Shmuel, the Walla website reported.

Channel 2’s report alleged that the organization was actively seeking potentially classified information about the Israeli military’s tactics and operations.

“Breaking the Silence has crossed another red line,” Netanyahu said Thursday. “The defense establishment’s investigative bodies are looking into the issue.”

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also said he had instructed the army to open an investigation into the reports, to check whether the organization had extracted classified information from former soldiers.

The Channel 2 report on Thursday 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. But while Breaking the Silence claims to be interested only in human rights abuses, 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 the organization and had the express intention of collecting information for it.

The woman, named as Prima Bives, is heard saying she consulted with a top member of Breaking the Silence before being drafted, and that he suggested she try to get into the IDF Civil Administration — the body that handles the army’s interaction with the civilian Palestinian population. At the end of her service, he told her, she would be able to bring Breaking the Silence testimonials on its actions.

Watch the Channel 2 report (in Hebrew) here.

In the footage of that first meeting, the Breaking the Silence member told the Ad Kan activist that his more tactically oriented questions were intended to bolster the group’s “professional knowledge” and were important for background.

This statement was met with skepticism by retired general Avi Mizrahi, the former head of the IDF’s Central Command.

“This looks like an operational debriefing by someone trying to extract info on tactical operations,” he told Channel 2 while viewing the footage. “It has nothing to do with values or ethics in warfare or morals in warfare.”

Breaking the Silence denied any wrongdoing, telling Channel 2 it worked closely with Israeli military censors to ensure information it published was not classified or of a sensitive nature.

“You’ve accepted the interpretation of Ad Kan, whose interests are clear,” Breaking the Silence CEO Yuli Novak told the news program. “There are certified bodies in the country that deal with authorizing data for publication. Our job is to collect information and publish it in accordance with the censor’s dictates.”

Novak claimed that the TV report served “a number of organizations, which, along with lawmakers from Likud and Jewish Home, seek to silence anyone who criticizes the government and the occupation.”