They will examine proposals for a committee of inquiry into groups receiving foreign funding, and a provision in the so-called “NGO law” advanced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition that would allow the state to shut down groups it claims are working to “have [Israeli] soldiers tried under international law”.
The moves come amid increasingly harsh rhetoric from Israel’s right wing, which has sought to cast Breaking the Silence and other anti-occupation groups including B’Tselem as “traitors”.
Breaking the Silence collects and publishes accounts of the actions of Israeli soldiers, in their own words, both in combat and in the day-to-day business of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
The group says it aims to highlight “the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers … are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life”. Critics say its activities leave the Israeli military vulnerable to prosecution in international courts.
Yehuda Shaul, a co-founder of Breaking the Silence, and Avner Gvaryahu, the group’s director, say they are not surprised by the latest efforts against them. “After 50 years, the occupation [of Palestinian territories] has become normalised,” said Shaul. “The only thing left fighting it is civil society groups.”
Demands for inquiries into the group’s funding and new laws aimed at curbing its activities have increased in the last two years, coinciding with a campaign by supporters of the pro-settlement movement who have tried to infiltrate the group and targeted its staff with threats.
“We have had sophisticated cyber-attacks against us for 72 hours straight which we believe was aimed at finding information on our testifiers,” said Shaul.
The pair claim that rightwing pro-settler activists have attempted to place fake testimonies to discredit the group and glean information on how they work.
“The worst problems began after 2015 and the election of Israel’s most rightwing ever government,” said Shaul. He said that as a result, dissent had increasingly become concentrated among a handful of NGOs.
Gvaryahu said: “The clock was ticking until the next attack. It was very clear when the Knesset finished its summer recess they would return to us.”
This month plans for the new committee were announced shortly before reports emerged that the tourism minister, Yariv Levin – allegedly at Netanyahu’s behest – intended to push for a legal mechanism to ban groups such as Breaking the Silence.
Levin has said the election in the US of Donald Trump, whose administration has rarely criticised the Netanyahu government, has made the proposed legislation easier to promote.
“It wouldn’t have made it through in the period of the Obama administration,” Levin claimed this year. “They were very uneasy about the bill. The present administration has no problem with it.”
Although the Israeli parliament’s legal adviser has challenged the lawfulness of setting up an investigative committee, observers believe the government’s determination to move against Breaking the Silence and similar groups mean it will find a way to proceed.
Gvaryahu and Shaul are bullish in the face of the assault but others in the Israeli human rights community are less sanguine about what they see as its implications for freedom of speech in Israel and the ability of NGOs to operate.
“You just cannot underestimate the impact of this,” said one NGO worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said his group faced similar issues. The chair of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, David Bitan, has called for El-Ad to be stripped of his citizenship after he criticised the Israeli occupation at the UN.
“We’re looking at a process that has been gradually advancing since 2011 or so,” El-Ad told the Guardian. “The basic framework the [Netanyahu] government has established is that human rights organisations are traitors, with all the consequences that follow such a branding.
“Around the world there are many examples of shrinking space for civil society. But in Israel it is not broad, it is aimed at organisations that oppose the occupation. It is being done to intimidate us.”
What Shaul finds most troubling about the accusations against his group is the claim that it is attempting to have Israeli soldiers tried before tribunals such as the international criminal court.
Breaking the Silence does not name the soldiers whose accounts it publishes or identify the locations where incidents occurred.
“Our interest is not in legal avenues but in the moral framework of 50 years of occupation,” he said. “Everything we publish has to be screened by the Israeli military censor. That is important because the censor views potential prosecution [of Israeli soldiers] as a security issue. And it is still approved.”
The organisation employs 15 people and operates with an annual budget of £1.2m. Shaul admits the pressure the group has faced, especially in the last two years, has had an impact.
“When the government says you are traitors – and alleged at one stage that we should be investigated on suspicion of collecting state secrets … well, if you throw enough mud it sticks, of course.”
A spokesman for Netanyahu’s office did not reply to a request to discuss the issue.
Original Article
Source: theguardian.com
Author: Peter Beaumont
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