"Breaking the Silence" testimonies, in context, actually show a moral IDF

Akiva Bigman at Mida magazine took the time to go through the "testimonies" of former IDF soldiers at the "Breaking the Silence" website, and finds that their worst stories don't come close to describing the IDF as being the monstrous abuser of human rights they pretend it is:

Most of the leading testimonies are downright disappointing. Almost all the cases we reviewed didn't involve physical harm or property damage. Most of them were fairly trivial, the kind of small-scale misconduct and rough behavior you might find in any large-scale policing operation: Prisoners who spent the night cuffed and on all fours and crying, a directive to check every vehicle coming out of Bethlehem and to "be tough" which caused a soldier to testify that "we were in this situation and it was very unpleasant", and another case where a female soldier mentioned a male counterpart at a checkpoint who would be rude in asking Palestinian commuters for cigarettes: "He didn't say: Pal, you've got a cigarette? He said: Give me a cigarette…he was in the mode of 'I'm the man' and the boss of this checkpoint.'

These kinds of cases constitute the overwhelming majority of testimonies on the site. This isn't admirable behavior, to be sure, but given how the IDF is often portrayed as the 21st century version of SS murder squads, we expected far worse.

When it comes to the minority of cases that actually involve killing, wounding or arresting suspects, we come across a troubling phenomenon. The testimonies on site deal with clear cut cases of anti-terror operations: killing terrorists, arresting of suspects, and activities involving prevention and interrogation, but this crucial context is nowhere to be seen in the Breaking the Silence testimonies. Breaking the Silence prefer to hide the actual reason for the IDF's actions, as well as the severity of the terror threat and the difficult conditions under which Israeli security forces have to work. Thus, the naïve reader unaware of all this receives a simplistic, lachrymose and superficial account with "jackbooted" soldiers and oppressed Palestinians. In this agitprop morality play, enthusiastically supported by foreign countries and the world media, there is no place for little things like context and facts.

Take the story of Fathi Najar, commander of the Fatah military wing in Yatta in the Hebron Governate, who was arrested in 2002 for involvement in terrorist attacks and laying explosive devices against IDF soldiers.

According to the testimony of a soldier present at the capture, some of the soldiers and commanders beat him after the arrest, as an act of release for capturing such a senior terrorist and after putting their lives at significant risk. These actions so shocked the soldier that he felt burdened until his discharge and he went running to Breaking the Silence to tell his story. Granted this behavior was wrong – but can one really draw a line between some blows to an arch-murderer really prove the 'monstrously corrosive effects of the occupation'?

Another soldier testified that they executed a "kill confirmation" on armed terrorists: "It was surprising and frustrating. Surprising because for instance [a commander] shot a terrorist who was walking around with an AK-47 and a cellphone and didn't know he was thirty meters from the IDF. He shot him at center mass and he fell, then they threw two grenades at him to ensure that he was dead." According to the testimony, in the after action inquiry, the brigade commander instructed the soldiers how such an encounter should end: "You come to the body, put a rifle between his teeth and fire," something which at the time was defined as illegal.

Let's be honest here: are we supposed to be shocked by this? Putting aside PC sanctimony, let's admit that such a brigade commander, who puts a premium on his soldiers' lives and doesn't want to take the chance that the terrorist make a final pull of the trigger or detonate an explosive belt to take out the arresting soldiers, is far from outside the pale of humanity. Let us remind the choir of Breaking the Silence, that these are soldiers fighting dangerous terrorists in armed combat, not uninvolved civilians playing chess.

...More than that: the average reader abroad might be surprised to learn that even pinpoint surgical operations, meant to minimize harm to uninvolved civilians while risking IDF soldiers, also worry Breaking the Silence. In one of the testimonies, a soldier complained that the IDF conducts ground operation to take out terrorists when it is not possible to eliminate them from the air, as "they are at home with too many people, or in cases where more care is required, it's not possible to drop a one-ton bomb." So what exactly is the problem? "Many times [in these action] there are additional casualties [aside from the terrorist himself]." This specific soldier admits that it didn't happen in operations he was involved in, but he "believes" it happened in other cases.

If there is any moral outrage to be had here, it is that the IDF is risking its troops to avoid civilian casualties when pinpoint strikes from the air could do the job just as well. But Breaking the Silence complains even when the IDF does this – and even when there are no civilian casualties.

...Here's the kicker: Breaking the Silence isn't really interested in human rights or military ethics. They're interested in something else entirely: opposing the "occupation" and ending it come hell or high water. They openly acknowledged this agenda: a Breaking the Silence spokesmen stated that "Breaking the Silence is not a normal human rights organization. We are in fact an educational organization, whose purpose is to show the Israeli public the reality of the occupation. This is what ruling over a foreign population looks like." ...

As Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel put it:

They have a clear political agenda, which is no longer really covered under the term 'human rights organization'.

The truth is that none of this should be surprising. As an organization receiving massive amounts of money from foreign, largely European, countries (1.3 million NIS in 2011), Breaking the Silence is committed first and foremost to the interests of its patrons. What better way to satisfy them than to present the IDF as the reincarnation of 20th century fascist thugs?

In spite of all this, it's good we have Breaking the Silence. Whoever reads their testimonies with a careful and critical and critical eye will actually have reason to take heart. If this is the best Breaking the Silence can find after ten years of activity and millions of dollars, making every effort to single out the worst possible incidents and interpreting them in the most malicious possible way, with no serious comparison to other armies and with partial information and testimonies, then the IDF comes off looking just like the evil hasbaraniks say it is – a profoundly moral army in very difficult circumstances.

See also Ben-Dror Yemini:

The IDF is far from being perfect. There were and there are exceptions. The Israeli army is making an effort, more than any other army in the world, to prevent hurting innocent people. This effort should be encouraged.

But from the moment Breaking the Silence activists joined the "Durban strategy," from the moment they were sponsored by organizations like SJP, they deserve a badge of shame, because these bodies declare in the clearest way possible: Our goal is to destroy the Zionist entity.

And CiFWatch:

1. How can BtS claim they’re a human rights organization when, by any measure, they have a clearly radical political agenda? For instance, BtS members Yonatan and Itamar Shapira were on the Jews for Justice for Palestinians boat “Irene” which sought to violate Israel’s legal (arms) blockade of Gaza. Yonatan Shapira also once sprayed “Liberate all the ghettos” on to a wall nearby the actual Warsaw Ghetto where so many Jews lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis. As NGO Monitor’s president Gerald Steinberg argued: “BtS’s campaigns to discredit the IDF have turned the organization into an invaluable ally of those NGOs behind the “Durban Strategy” – with the explicit goal of “the complete international isolation” of Israel, using repeated accusations of “war crimes,” “genocide” and “apartheid.”

2. Why does BtS court the international media rather than presenting its allegations through the normal military chain of command?

3. Relatedly, why won’t BtS give any identifying details in their accounts – such as the sector, date or unit – so that the incident can be properly investigated by the military, the media or other interested parties?

4. Finally, in light of the fact that Israel is such a strong democracy, with a robust grassroots civil society, and a free, feisty and adversarial media, what “silence” is this foreign-funded group attempting to break?

(h/t Yoel, Ian)