German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel travels to Israel on Wednesday for his first visit since Premier Benjamin Netanyahu snubbed him for meeting government-critical NGOs.
Breaking the Silence, an NGO representing former Israeli soldiers who criticised Israeli military practices and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has been derided as a group of traitors and slanderers by many right-wing politicians.
Supported by the European Union and German NGOs among others the group is so reviled that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to meet German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in April after the latter met with Breaking the Silence and two other government-critical NGOs.
“[We] will not meet with those who lend legitimacy to organisations that call for the criminalisation of Israeli soldiers,” Netanyahu said at the time.
On Wednesday, Gabriel will visit Israel and the Palestinian Territories for the first time since his spat with Netanyahu – with no meetings scheduled with Israeli civil groups.
Yehuda Shaul, a co-founder of Breaking the Silence, spoke to dpa about the state of civil discourse in Israel.
“We have the most right-wing government that we ever had in Israel making sure that anyone who speaks against the occupation and the policy of settlements in the occupied territories is silenced and shut up,” Shaul, 35, said from his office in Tel Aviv.
A law passed in July 2016 requires Israeli NGOs that receive more than 50 per cent funding from foreign governments to note this fact on all publications and be registered on a Justice Ministry list.
“It’s about marking you as traitor,” Shaul said. Breaking the Silence does not fall under the law’s jurisdiction, he added.
Supporters of the law accuse foreign governments and the EU of interfering in internal Israeli affairs by aiding only organisations that are critical of the Israeli occupation.
Breaking the Silence publishes soldiers’ mostly anonymous testimonies that are critical of Israeli military practices against Palestinians.
Its members travel around the world to speak out against Israel’s military control of the Palestinian Territories and alleged abuses carried out by Israel.
Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett is pushing a bill that Shaul said seeks to ban the NGO from speaking at Israeli schools.
Israeli politicians have accused the group of publishing false accusations that are shielded by the soldiers’ anonymity.
Dean Issacharoff, a spokesman for Breaking the Silence and son of Israel’s ambassador to Germany, has been under police investigation since November after publicly stating that he assaulted a Palestinian man during his military service.
The investigation, requested by right-wing Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, has seen Israeli politicians accuse Issacharoff of lying about the incident, while Breaking the Silence is attempting to prove that he did actually beat the Palestinian man.
“It is a win-win situation” for hardline military supporters in Israel, Shaul said. If Issacharoff is found guilty and imprisoned, other soldiers might be discouraged from coming forward with their own accounts; if he is found not guilty, Breaking the Silence would be discredited by false testimony, Shaul said.
Shaul argued that the Israeli government is seeking to erode democratic institutions “in the name of keeping the settlements, keeping the outposts, keeping the occupation.”
In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the eastern half of Jerusalem – all territories claimed by Palestinians for a future Palestinian state.
Israel removed its military from the Gaza Strip in 2005, maintaining a blockade of the coastal enclave, while expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in a move that was not internationally recognized.
Many Israeli politicians have said that Israeli control over the West Bank is necessary to ensure Israel’s security, and a majority of lawmakers in Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party denounce the internationally favoured two-state solution that would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“For 50 years we had a democracy within the Green Line and a military dictatorship outside the Green Line,” Shaul said, referring to the boundary demarcating territory captured by Israel in 1967.
Current political developments are about “changing the democracy inside the Green Line from a regime that aspires to be a liberal democracy to a non-liberal democracy,” he said.