Source: Wikipedia

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im_Tirtzu

There's no doubt in my mind that Im Tirtzu is a racist and (crypto) fascist organization that only tries to cause trouble. They should never be taken seriously, because that's how rasism and fascism becomes mainstream. It's a sign of Israel's dysfunctional democracy that organizations like Im Tirtzu are taken seriously and even has links to the goverment.

Foreign funded NGO's are important for promoting and anchoring democratic values. Israel is not Russia.

That means they're funded by genuine, active fascists who want Jews dead and THAT's who these organizations are accountable to.

I think it's interesting that you have difficulty seeing the antisemitism of Mondoweiss (which is amply evidenced from their own website), but are certain that Im Tirtzu is racist. Based on what?

constraints.

The -crypto part is when this is done while pretending to be part of the democratic discourse.

I'm not the only one who's accusing Im Tirtzu of being a fascist organization:

+972 Mag, September 8, 2013: Jerusalem Court: Okay to call Im Tirtzu a 'fascist group'

Read more: http://972mag.com/jerusalem-court-okay-to-call-im-tirzu-a-fascist-group/78591/


Bradley Burston in Haaretz, Dec 22, 2015: Fascism in Israel? It's Up to You

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.693304


Chemi Shalev in Haaretz, Dec 16, 2015: Im Tirtzu and the Proto-fascist Plot to Destroy Israeli Democracy

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.692273


Jerusalem Post, 12/16/2015: Israeli rights groups alarmed by Zionist student group's video attack

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israeli-rights-groups-alarmed-by-Zionist-student-groups-video-attack-437475

Of course I cherry-picked these articles, but they reflect what I think to a great degree. Im tirtzu is dangerous for Israel's democracy.

Note: For Haaretz Premium articles, Google the title for access.

From dictionary.com:

noun
1.
(sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
2.
(sometimes initial capital letter) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.
3.
(initial capital letter) a political movement that employs the principles and methods of fascism, especially the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

The key elements of fascism are aggressive nationalism, racism, and the use of force as a political tool. Im Tirtzu simply isn't that. Again, it's telling that you resist the well proven charge of antisemitism at Mondoweiss, yet jump to call Im Tirtzu fascist on what is at best pretty flimsy evidence and the hysterics of certain people on the Left who have a vested interest in smearing them.

Anyway, most definitions concentrate on what fascism looks like, and not so much on what it is. Your definition from a dictionary is merely a more detailed description of fascism than mine. There are no contradictions here.

Regardless of how we differ on Mondoweiss, surely Im Tirtzu is the more extreme of the two?

Never has Mondoweiss made it clear they oppose Hamas' fascism & regressivism. Not once. Never have they seriously advocated for liberal/progressive values in Gaza or the W.Bank - putting pressure on Palestinian leaders to reform - immediately. Never once.

==========================

OTOH, Im Tirtzu doesn't support Fascists or a Fascist style of gov't like Mondoweiss. Never do we see Im Tirtzu advocating for Fascist, anti-Democratic values or practices as we do with Mondoweiss/Hamas.

So how do you reckon Im Tirtzu is more extreme, more fascist?

They're different in what they do, so I think they're difficult to compare. But I'm not sure one group is clearly worse than the other. I know that I'm very prejudiced against groups like Im Tirtzu, but still...

Mondoweiss isn't even in the same league...

Hamas meets all criteria related to fascism.

Yes or No?

Last edited Wed Dec 30, 2015, 12:07 PM - Edit history (3)

Using Gazan kids as militants and human shields....

Seriously?

How does Im Tirtzu compare to a genocidal organization that calls for the murder of all Jews?

Disagreeing with Im Tirtzu is one thing, but making them out to be as bad or worse than Hamas is nuts.

You accuse others of being fascist but you demonstrate no knowledge of what being fascist is all about. Hamas is fascist in every conceivable way and yet you give them a pass. Why?

-from the Israel’s president to the defense minister to the police. So what’s the deal?

By Haggai Matar |Published December 14, 2015

Breaking the Silence is a Jewish organization, of former Israeli soldiers, most of whom served in combat roles — and all they want to do is to tell Israeli society, which sent them to the occupied Palestinian territories, what they did there as soldiers. They do so with written and video testimonies collected form over 1,000 soldiers, all of which were approved by the IDF Censor before being published. That’s all.

They don’t support the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. They aren’t trying to have Israeli officers tried for war crimes (the opposite: they believe that the political echelon, not the army, should be held responsible for the occupation). They do not justify any Palestinian violence. They don’t even call on Israelis to refuse to serve in the army, and many of them still do reserve duty every year. If anything, one could pretty easily criticize Breaking the Silence from the left side of the political map.

And yet, since Breaking the Silence was established it has been under constant attack from the Right in Israel, an attack that has grown louder and stronger in the past month or two. In the latest chapter of the absurd campaign against the organization, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon banned Breaking the Silence from any and all IDF activities. Why? Because if the organization “really shared our values … they would work directly with the IDF, and wouldn’t tarnish our soldiers overseas.” Got that? Because they don’t speak to the army they are no longer allowed to speak to the army. Brilliant.

But let’s take a look at the accusations against Breaking the Silence one by one:

The first claim, which in my mind is the most important and most critical accusation to refute, is that Breaking the Silence is not credible. The organization’s critics come up with all sorts of reasons why the organization isn’t credible, but there is one rebuttal that is awfully difficult to refute: In the 11 years that Breaking the Silence has collected and published testimonies, there has not been one instance in which a serious error, or a fabrication, has been found in their published testimonies.

That is no insignificant point. That needs to be the heart of the debate. An organization that publishes hundrds of testimonies, which works with more than 1,000 soldiers, which has dealt with very complicated subject matter for 11 years — not a single fabricated published testimony has ever been found. No court of law in any land can boast of such a record. And that is despite a number of attempts to fool the organization by giving them false testimonies. Their researchers and fact-checkers seem to have a perfect record of catching fabrications before publication.

That astounding success is the result of the massive investment Breaking the Silence makes in every single testimony. As the organization’s director of research has written here in the past, every testimony that a soldier or former soldier gives is fact-checked, the background of the incident or testimony is verified along with the identity of the testifier him or herself (and that they are not an aspiring politician looking to make a name for himself), and then the entire testimony is corroborated with any available information — both from other soldiers’ testimonies and open source information. Some of the most hair-raising testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence were never published because the organization could not independently corroborate them. Just imagine if journalists who published attack pieces on the organization applied their strict verification standards to their own work and the malicious things that are said about it.

The second claim is that they don’t hand over their testimonies for investigation by the army. I say: why hand them over? First of all, in its early years the organization did hand over its testimonies to the army. And what happened? They were paid a visit by the military police in order to investigate the very crimes they were testifying about, as if they were the guilty party and not their commanders or the army’s policies in the territories. So why hand over testimonies if all it means is that you’ll be investigated for testifying?

Add to that the fact that others who decided to air such criticisms from within the army didn’t have any greater success (like the story of the refuseniks from Israel’s hi-tech intelligence Unit 8200, who before anything else complained directly to their commanders). And the fact that Israel Military Police investigations (which aren’t always even initiated in the first place) only rarely lead to indictments and convictions (as has been documented time and again in our special investigative series “License to Kill”).

But even if all that weren’t the case, and that would certainly be best, there would still be no need for Breaking the Silence to hand over its testimonies for the army to investigate. The whole point of Breaking the Silence is that the military occupation in the territories is itself the problem, and that injustices are an inherent part of that situation, not exceptional incidents or the result of “bad apples.” So what exactly is the army supposed to investigate? Whether it ruling millions of people under a military regime for almost 50 years? Whether that military regime is responsible for inescapable systematic violations of human and civil rights? (By the way, when the army wants to, it knows how to use Breaking the Silence testimonies in order to advance its investigations.)

The third grievance is that the organization’s testimonies are published anonymously. First of all, there are plenty of testimonies that are not anonymous, with names and faces and all that jazz. And regarding the anonymous ones: in a society that is so quick to pounce on anybody who levies the slightest criticism against the army, in an army that is quick to investigate anybody who gives their own testimony, and the weight of the guilt many of them surely feel for their deeds, where most of those testifying probably don’t want their friends and family to know what they’ve done — you can begin to understand why.

The fourth claim is that Breaking the Silence is funded by foreign countries. Yeah? So what? Seriously. If we’ve already established that testimonies the organization publishes are verified as true, then what does it matter whether a foreign country helps fund their publication? Because those countries have their own agendas? So what? Every country has an agenda and interests. Every organization, every institution and every individual person has an agenda. What’s wrong with having an agenda? It’s the testimonies themselves that deserve to be debated, not who paid the book binder and the graphic designer who created the cover art.

The fifth — and central — claim against Breaking the Silence, is that they also operate overseas. a large part of this accusation is just absurd, mostly because it is most often flung at the organization when it holds events in Israel — like when they give lectures to Israeli soldiers.

So no, they’re not just an outward-facing organization. Most of Breaking the Silence’s activities are in Israel. The soldiers served here in the Israeli army, it is here that they are interviewed by the media, it is here that they organization tours of the occupied territories every month, it is here that they give lectures (which are sometimes shut down by authorities), and it is here that they read testimonies in the streets. And yes, they travel overseas now and again, partly because they feel — and rightfully so — that nobody’s really listening to them here. And that’s legitimate.

So why does the Israeli Right have such a hard dealing with Breaking the Silence? For all of the reasons laid out here. Because they are soldiers. Because they are speaking the truth, and go to great lengths to ensure that their testimonies are accurate. Because they take great pains to explain that this is a systemic problem and not just a few bad apples. Because they invest massive amounts of time and money in reaching out to Israeli society in order to show it just how ugly military occupation is.

For all of those reasons, because the Right doesn’t have an answer to them, the right wing in Israel blows smoke and slings mud at them. All in order to stop people hearing what they have to say. Except it’s important to hear what they have to say. Take a tour with Breaking the Silence. It’s worth your while.

This article first appeared in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

Source: http://972mag.com/why-do-so-many-israelis-hate-breaking-the-silence/114763/

IDF soldiers from various units who fought in last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip called a recent report by NGO Breaking the Silence a “total lie.”

The soldiers spoke to Israel’s Channel 2 to tell their side of the story, and to counter the testimonies compiled by Breaking the Silence.

One soldier called the report “a wicked story” and a “stab in the back.”

Another soldier, Lt. Oren (a pseudonym), was a platoon commander in the 7th Brigade during the previous Operation Cast Lead, which began in late 2008. The Breaking the Silence report claimed that one of the tank commanders in Oren’s platoon carried out a “revenge attack” by targeting civilian houses in Gaza.

Oren refuted the claim, saying “this nonsense about ‘fire on the house that you want for revenge’ is simply a total lie.” He said “it is very hard for me to believe that one of ours said something like that, definitely not someone who was there.” Oren, who was personally involved in the operation, told a different story. He said that any “revenge” incident might have occurred after Armored Core Capt. Dmitri Levitas (26) was killed in battle, but that the Breaking the Silence testimony “simply is not true.” He said despite the fact that he and his fellow soldiers were severely affected by the death of Levitas, “we maintained combat ethics.” “While it’s true there was heavy IDF fire, this fire was directed at positions from which we were being fired upon, or suspicious locations,” he recalled.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/05/08/israeli-soldiers-call-breaking-the-silence-report-on-gaza-war-a-%E2%80%98total-lie%E2%80%99/

BTW you sure you would still vote Meretz if you could ????


Four MKs Removed From Knesset Amid Heated Breaking the Silence Debate

Meretz chair Galon calls left-wing activists 'heroes' sparking fierce response from Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie: Breaking the Silence brings 'slime to the surface.'

Haaretz Dec 15, 2015 10:40 AM

Four MKs representing three of Israel's political parties were removed from a plenary Knesset session Monday evening amid fierce arguments surrounding the topic of left-wing NGO Breaking the Silence.

The incident was sparked by comments from Meretz Chair Zahava Galon who addressed public criticism against the organization, expressing support for its members and calling them heroes. 

"A proper society needs to be proud of such soldiers," said Galon while accusing Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon of joining a campaign of "McCarthyism" and "bounty hunting" against Breaking the Silence. 

MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) was removed from the meeting after responding to Galon, saying that Breaking the Silence acts in an "ugly and perverse" manner.
"Everything needs to be checked," Lavie conceded, but continued, "Bring facts and evidence. Don't fly at the expense of the New Israel Fund or other leftist funders to stages in the world that open their doors because a hot item is arriving from Israel from the mouth of Hebrew speakers who bring the slime to the surface." 

According to Galon however, "A proper Democracy needs to allow for criticism of those in power and those who silence organizations and those who insist on hounding them and prevents criticism of those in power help aid in the de-legitimization of the State of Israel. 

"These people are heroes, they aren't traitors," she continued. "I want to state clearly and firmly ... Meretz stands by Breaking the Silence."

Her comments caused commotion and MKs Lavie, Mirav Ari (Kulanu), Mickey Levi (Yesh Atid) and Nava Boker (Likud) were removed from the meeting.

Galon's controversial remarks came after Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon wrote on Twitter Sunday that Breaking the Silence has "malicious motives" and said authorities "will harshly fight such movements."

Breaking the Silence responded to his tweets Monday, saying that the defense minister "appointed himself minister of silencing and fearmongering as he joined the path of incitement conducted by extremist right-wing organizations in recent months against democracy in Israel and anyone who dares call for an end to the occupation and settlement factory.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.691896

That speaks volumes to her intent.

Priceless, shira.

To understand how bad this is, imagine an organization committed to fighting antisemitism having its funding conditioned on a minimum number of testimonies.

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/europe_to_breaking_the_silence_bring_us_as_many_incriminating_testimonies_as_possible

http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/site/articles/?a=8696

The group had already defended Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, submitting their preliminary findings to the UN Human Rights Commission's probe into the operation, but the group's final 80-page report goes far beyond their initial assessment.

'Our findings were diametrically opposed to the UN report,' Col. Richard Kemp, one of the document's authors and the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told The Times of Israel on Thursday, blasting the lack of military expertise by the United Nations commission that investigated the conflict. 'The UN report was done too quickly and was done by the wrong people.'...

The UN and NGO reports were investigated by human rights experts, and not military personnel who are most familiar with the laws of armed conflict. Without that expertise, the commissions investigating the 2014 Operation Protective Edge arrived at biased and inaccurate conclusions, Kemp said...

Kemp, who also previously led the UK Joint Intelligence Committee's international terrorism team, has defended Israeli military actions against Gaza before, testifying before the UN's Goldstone commission on Israel's 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead. The rest of the group, however, had only brief or tangential connections with the IDF, and many came in to the group anticipating to find indications of Israeli crimes, Kemp said.

We examined the reports for 2006-2013 of nine NGOs identified with the Israeli right, and found that the sources of hundreds of millions of shekels that have influenced policy and public opinion in Israel in recent years, and continue to do so, are not transparent, and that the public has no way of knowing where this funding originates.

For the full report (in Hebrew) - click here.

Source: http://peacenow.org.il/eng/RightWingNGOs

Breaking the Silence has surpassed even the human rights NGOs, getting branded as an 'organization of terrorists' with whom no contact should be permitted.

Zvi Bar'el Dec 16, 2015

The Israel Defense Forces may not be the most moral army in the world, but it’s certainly one of the most moral organizations in the country. The most salient proof of this is that no other state institution has ever produced an organization like Breaking the Silence, which collects testimony about the irregularities, abuses and crimes that IDF soldiers commit against civilians.

The police force shrouds deviations by its senior officers in strict secrecy. Among civil servants, some of whom have a tendency to unnecessarily abuse the citizenry, no organization whose goal is to uproot this civil torture has ever arisen. And in the Shin Bet security service, should any investigators ever open their mouths, they would surely be accused of treason against the homeland and stood up against the wall.

But Breaking the Silence violated the greatest taboo of all: It broke the “code of loyalty” to the lie and thereby created a historic precedent that hasn’t sat well in the belly of the nation, which was educated to blind faith in the sanctity of the army and the purity of its arms. For in a place where the priests of security can do no wrong and the holy vessels in uniform wear the sign of supreme morality around their necks, then even when they kill innocents, not even a shadow of a doubt about their purity can exist. Yet even so, Breaking the Silence, which sought to serve as a cleansing agent for the dark corners that the army carefully hid, has suffered far more than it bargained for.

The organization was well aware of the boiling oil that would be thrown on it from the heights of the fortified wall it sought to bring down. It knew it would be depicted as an informer, a subversive organization and a hater of Israel. In that, it was no different from all the other organizations that monitor infringements of human and civil rights – the groups imprisoned by the term “left-wing organizations,” which bring Arabs to the polls in droves.

But Breaking the Silence has surpassed even these organizations, getting branded as an “organization of terrorists” with whom no contact should be permitted. The defense minister’s order barring the group’s activities in the IDF is merely a softened version, one step below, of making it an “illegal organization” like the northern branch of the Islamic Movement. After all, anyone who “smears” the IDF – Jew or Muslim – undermines Israel’s national security.

Yet Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon’s order is merely the formal summation of the public verdict the right has handed down against the organization. And not against it alone, but against anyone who has contact with it, is friendly with its members, gives it information or is even in its vicinity.

President Reuven Rivlin learned the meaning of the crime of “contact with an enemy organization” from personal experience, when he breathed the same air as members of Breaking the Silence at Haaretz’s conference in New York this week, even as he was sitting beneath the Israeli flag. Can anyone imagine U.S. President Barack Obama participating in a conference with one of the leaders of ISIS?

Rivlin’s “guilt” isn’t subject to debate, and even his argument that he wasn’t speaking at a Breaking the Silence conference was rejected out of hand. The very fact that he was present alongside members of this dangerous terrorist organization justifies ousting him from office. There can be no cruder sabotage of the Israeli holy of holies than granting legitimacy to traitors.

It’s a mistake to think this is merely the view of one far-right faction; the right has no factions. It’s an ocean in which all the factions are swallowed up. This is the view of the masses who can’t tolerate a false note in the ranks of the choir.

The problem, therefore, is no longer with Breaking the Silence, but with its “sponsors.” It’s Rivlin’s good fortune that Israel is a democratic country which supports the rule of law and putting traitors on trial rather than executing them without trial.

But it’s impossible to rely on the wheels of justice to do their work properly. They usually grind slowly and prefer plea bargains. No. For the president, it’s impossible to wait until then. Anyone who wants to destroy Breaking the Silence, or so it seems from the fire-breathing Facebook pages, will first have to “neutralize” Rivlin.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.692012

It's a fact that BtS has lied, slandered, and demonized the IDF.

That's the problem - it's not legitimate criticism.

From Matti Friedman's Facebook page:

Netanyahu, Lapid, Bennett and Ya'alon help turn the president into an enemy of the state; the prime minister's dog bumps staggering poverty figures from the headlines.

Yossi Verter Dec 19, 2015

Shortly after the conclusion of the successful meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House, all the Israeli president’s people congregated in the suite of Reuven and Nechama Rivlin at their hotel in Washington. Spirits ran high. The responses from back home that flooded the advisers’ cellphones were no less than ecstatic. Rivlin then said something that seemed odd under the circumstances: “I suggest that you go into defensive mode. It was too good and so it won’t slip by quietly.” The jubilant people in the room thought he was exaggerating. What could go wrong?

Hardly had the weekend ended when the president’s entourage found itself in the eye of a storm. Someone examining the schedule of the Haaretz-New Israel Fund peace conference in New York, which was about to open with a speech by Rivlin, discovered that a representative of the anti-occupation Breaking the Silence organization was taking part in one of the many panel discussions. That slice of bleeding flesh was thrown to the Israeli media – and the hysteria quickly erupted.

Anyone who didn’t check out the subject carefully but made do with the whining columns of the professional lamenters in the Israeli media who declared fearfully that the end of Zionism was at hand, could have formed the impression that President Rivlin rubbed knees with someone from the organization on the stage and under the table slipped him a note containing the serial numbers of wayward soldiers.

In fact, when the panel discussion in question took place, Rivlin was long since back in his hotel, reading, among other messages, the favorable post uploaded by Amit Deri, the head of one of the reservists’ groups that are opposed to Breaking the Silence, in which he emotionally thanked the president for coming out unreservedly in defense of Israel’s soldiers in his speech at the conference. Nor was Rivlin aware of the incident involving the removal of the Israeli flag from the conference stage, at the request of Saeb Erekat, of the Palestinian Authority, who spoke after him. Regrettably, he was tainted with that episode, too.

One event fueled the next, one snafu nourished another, and with that sour taste in his mouth, Rivlin and his entourage returned to Israel and discovered that it wasn’t the end, only the end of the beginning. The hate campaign at home gained momentum. Politicians stepped in, led by MK Yair Lapid. He pounced on the Breaking the Silence issue with a typical post against the organization he abhors. In the same breath, he declared that the president was “permitted” to speak in the conference. The next day, after hearing about the flag episode, the Yesh Atid leader told his Knesset faction that this reflected the ultimate “loss of national pride.”

In this saga, Lapid worked overtime as one of the leaders of the right-wing incitement against Rivlin, even if unwittingly. His obsession to lash out at every opportunity against “the left,” from which he keeps his distance as if from lepers (at the instruction of his pollster, Mark Mellman), led him to savage Rivlin. On two occasions, Lapid turned Rivlin into a hater of Israel, into someone who had joined forces with the country’s worst enemies.

During the week, Lapid’s hypocrisy set new records. After firing his volleys, he remembered to decry the growing madness in the social networks, the platform of the far-right Channel 20, and the silence of the right wing. Maybe MK Ofer Shelah, the whip of the Yesh Atid Knesset faction and one of the first to defend Rivlin publicly, reminded him that “yesh gvul” – there is a limit. That it was time for Lapid to break his silence, but without adding fuel to the flames for once. Lapid published something condemning the attackers and deploring those who were silent in the face of the assaults on Rivlin, then called the President’s Residence to get a friendly pat on the back.

Lapid did even more; as we know, he’s not only a statesman but an educator and a preacher to boot. On Wednesday morning, he rushed over to Zionist Union leaders MK Isaac Herzog and MK Tzipi Livni, who were chatting at the entrance to the Knesset chamber. “Bougie,” he said, using Herzog’s nickname, “you have to condemn the silence of the coalition” in the face of the campaign against Rivlin. Even before the startled Herzog could reply that he was the first politician who had gone before the cameras to deplore what needed deploring and to defend the president, Livni snapped at Lapid, “Yair, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You’re the one who started it all!” Lapid shuffled away, rebuked.

I spoke with Livni after her encounter with Lapid and following the roiling debate in the Knesset, which ended with a titanic clash between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of the opposition. Netanyahu demanded that Herzog condemn Breaking the Silence. Herzog didn’t fall into the trap: He demanded that Netanyahu deplore the incitement against Rivlin. Three days late, the premier, halfheartedly, as though under duress, finally deigned to issue a flaccid, limp and general statement in that spirit.

Livni’s analysis of Netanyahu’s sophisticated tactic was spot-on. By demanding that Herzog vilify Breaking the Silence, she said, the prime minister was associating him and the entire opposition with the organization. In Netanyahu’s world, everyone who doesn’t applaud him and recognize his greatness is automatically an enemy of the people, an in-house enemy in this case, which is worst of all. Anyone who dares to recognize the right of any organization to criticize the government is denounced as an enemy of the people.

“It began during the election, when we [Zionist Camp] were represented as people who would give the ISIS free access to Jerusalem.
“The prime minister is the ‘founding father’ of the ugly wave against the president,” Livni said. “This is an attempt to impose one political position by way of intimidation and hatred.” She refused to comment on her exchange with Lapid, but noted that, in a trenchant post she uploaded on Monday, she had lambasted not only those on the right who are badmouthing the president and everyone who thinks differently from them – but also “those among us who think that it will pay them to be silent or to attack the left.”

The prediction Rivlin made in the Washington hotel came true. When he and his wife get a warm royal welcome at the White House on camera, someone, or two someones, here in the homeland, go berserk. The boisterous Likud WhatsApp groups filled up with hundreds of mudslinging comments against the president, mostly from people who are known to be supporters of Netanyahu – “Bibists,” as they’re known.

They’re the same functionaries who disparage Rivlin’s custom of flying no-frills to Europe. They’re the same folk who won’t miss an opportunity to label someone a leftist, a bleeding heart, an Arab lover. This is the same group that attacks the president with claws bared and accuses him of treachery whenever there’s a report of a crisis in relations between him and the prime minister. No one in the President’s Residence will fall out of his chair if all this turns out to have been orchestrated from above.

The speed with which the events unfolded indeed suggests a guiding hand. Two days after Rivlin spoke at the Haaretz conference in New York, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon decided to ban representatives of Breaking the Silence from appearing before soldiers. You might think that Ya’alon suddenly became aware of the organization’s existence when one of its members took the podium in New York.

The next day, Education Minister Naftali Bennett announced that representatives of the organization will not be allowed to appear in local schools. Again we have to ask: Why now? And also, whether Ya’alon and Bennett are aware that by linking the sanctions against the group to the event that triggered the affair, they are reinforcing the associative connection in the Israeli collective consciousness between Rivlin and the rebellious organization.

Also noteworthy is the alacrity with which the sickening clip of the Im Tirtzu organization, with its distorted faces, was produced. Is it possible to make such a clip and mount a campaign that fast? The impression is that Breaking the Silence is only an excuse for the serious upswing in the delegitimization campaign against President Rivlin that started immediately after his election. It’s being conducted by politicians, journalists, a mass-circulation newspaper, a minor television channel, and media and strategic consultants some of whom are very well connected to very high places.

What stands out amid all this is the thunderous and grating silence of the prime minister in the face of the public lynching of the president in the name of the right wing whose one-and-only leader Netanyahu considers himself to be. This silence, which was ostensibly broken in Wednesday’s Knesset debate, can only be interpreted as tacit consent and a mischievous wink of the eye at those who are adept at guessing what’s expected of them.

Netanyahu has a longtime, proven method for dealing with his rivals: vilification, vilification and more vilification. He learned it from the father of the method, the American political consultant Arthur Finkelstein, in the 1996 election. For example, about a year before the popular Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, was due to retire, in 1998, polls commissioned by Netanyahu showed that Lipkin-Shahak would pose a serious threat to him if he ran for prime minister. The moment the results of the polls arrived, Netanyahu’s bureau issued a sweeping directive to Likud stalwarts: You must assert and endlessly reiterate that Lipkin-Shahak – a serving chief of staff – is a leftist, leftist, leftist who will sell the country out to the Arabs.

At present, Rivlin is one of the few significant voices posing a challenge to Netanyahu in the domestic and international arenas. The president is sounding a different kind of tune – independent, liberal, moderate, in a word, sane – one that is otherwise so lacking here. Netanyahu can’t stand it. With the old chap Shimon Peres, he could live. Rivlin drives him crazy, and drives Sara even crazier. Netanyahu wants only one dominant and relevant voice to be heard in Israel: his. Anyone who sings in a different key and doesn’t parrot his doctrine is perceived as a scheming enemy.

In addition to that obsession, which is only becoming more acute as the premier’s years in office go by, there’s a nightmare scenario in which, after the next election, Rivlin will perform some twisted acrobatics and assign the candidate of the center-left the task of forming the next government. This issue is occupying Netanyahu day and night – and that’s not an exaggeration. He is now trying to deprive the president of the authority to decide who will form the next government by passing a “governance law,” which will stipulate that the leader of the largest Knesset faction automatically gets the nod to form it.

Alternatively, in the event that this initiative fails, he is working through emissaries and seraphs and angels to tag Rivlin in the eyes of the public as an implant of the left in the President’s Residence, and as someone who will possess personal motivation for denying Netanyahu the mandate to form the next coalition.

The premier doesn’t have to be overly active; it’s enough for him to remain silent, say, in the face of the petition that’s been organized on the Web under the heading, “Rivlin is not my president.” Let’s imagine for a moment what would happen if a similar petition were aimed against Netanyahu – what outcries, wailing and gnashing of teeth we would hear from morning unto evening from him and his spokespeople.

Two weeks ago, Rivlin met with Netanyahu at the President’s Residence in advance of the president’s departure for Washington. It was an encounter that both of them would have been happy to avoid. The prime minister asked the president to deliver various messages to Obama. Rivlin was not enthusiastic about this, to put it mildly. He may be only a president but he’s not a delivery boy. Netanyahu became angry: “I was elected prime minister,” he reminded Rivlin, “and I set policy.”

“Listen, Bibi,” Rivlin said. “It’s true that you are the prime minister – and also foreign minister, communications minister and economy minister. Maybe you want to be president, too? All you have to do is change the law. A small change in the Knesset and you’re all set.”

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.692449

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.692450.1450370417!/image/2737274333.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_609x343/2737274333.jpg

.....or would you like to keep this up ?

Supporters rally in solidarity with President Rivlin

150 supporters arrive at Rivlin's home to condemn the incitement that has swirled around him recently.

Roi Yanovsky
Published: 12.18.15, 23:11 / Israel News

Roughly 150 people rallied on Friday in support of President Reuven Rivlin in front of his home, following a difficult week in which the president was the target of inciting rhetoric following his visit to the White House and meeting with US President Barack Obama.

The demonstrators, led by the anti-racism grassroots organization Tag Meir, held up signs bearing slogans such as "the people are with you" and "racism is not Judaism".

Rivlin surprised demonstrators by leaving the house to greet and thank them.

"We arrived here from all around Israel to protest the outrageous incitement against the president," Tag Meir Chairman Gadi Gvaryahu said."This incitement cannot continue. We will keep coming here until the devious rhetoric against the president ceases."

Rivlin urged Israelis to be tolerant earlier this week. At a convention at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the president said: "I would like to begin by speaking from the heart about the mood in recent days. Freedom of speech is a fundamental democratic value and is essential to us all – to the president and to any one of our people. We strongly disagree with each other.

"Our disagreements are profound to the point of a chasm, and it is exactly because of this that we should argue justly, we should argue correctly. Let's listen and not trade blows," Rivlin said.

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4741172,00.html

...But for some reason, denouncing Israel’s military clearly attracts more funding and publicity than denouncing the US military. This also seems to be reflected on social media: currently, IVAW’s Facebook page has 26,472 “Likes”, while the BtS Hebrew Facebook page has 39,538 “Likes” and its English Facebook page has 173,918 “Likes” – despite the fact that both groups were founded just a few months apart in 2004 and that American military campaigns in the intervening decade have obviously affected many millions more than Israeli military campaigns.

Last but perhaps not least, some questions: is it conceivable that any American organization of military veterans would collect anonymous testimony from active soldiers, would accept foreign funding for their work, and would travel the world to present their publications, including to foreign government officials, while retaining any credibility at home? And another question: when BtS representatives recently met with Obama administration officials, did they wonder if these officials would be equally interested in anonymous testimony collected from US soldiers?

http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/The-Warped-Mirror/Breaking-the-silence-in-Israel-and-the-US-405245

As right-wing groups queued up to bash Breaking the Silence last week, it’s interesting to note how the Israeli army itself views the activists who shine a light on its operations.

Amos Harel Dec 19, 2015

Breaking the Silence was founded in the spring of 2004. Four freshly released soldiers from the Nahal Brigade, who served long tours in Hebron during the height of the second intifada, organized an exhibition that documented their experiences, which was displayed at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Although some people were outraged by the exhibition, the discussion about the soldiers’ claims was conducted far more calmly than it is today – despite the fact that, back then, suicide bombers were still blowing themselves up on buses in Israeli cities.

The current Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, was the commander of all IDF forces in the West Bank at the time, and he raised a concern: Why did the founders of the organization not oppose the army actions while they were serving, or at least report on them in real time? His argument was unconvincing. In most cases, a corporal will have a hard time going before the company or battalion commander in real time and saying, “That’s not allowed.” They are not equals. Few soldiers – particularly during regular service – have the ability to make such complaints, especially at a time when military casualties are high and the atmosphere is charged.

As the years went on, the IDF made two other, more substantial claims. The first regarded the difficulty in translating the soldiers’ testimonies into legal or disciplinary proceedings. Breaking the Silence has always maintained the testifiers’ anonymity, in order to protect them. And during cases where the military prosecutor was interested in investigating, such probes generally ended without results. IDF officials got the impression that publishing the testimonies was more important to Breaking the Silence than any legal proceedings. The IDF’s second claim pertains to the organization’s activities abroad. One can assume that this activity is mostly done for fundraising purposes, but holding exhibitions abroad and making claims about Israeli war crimes certainly offended many.

This week, there was a new low point in the public campaign against the organization. This combined two trends, only one of which was open and obvious. The first is the direct attack on Breaking the Silence by the right, comprised mostly of McCarthyesque attempts to silence it. These attacks have a sanctimonious air to them. In the eyes of the attackers, the international community is ganging up on Israel, and Breaking the Silence is the source of all our troubles – everything would be fine if it weren’t for this group of despicable liars slandering Israel’s reputation.

It is hard to shake the suspicion that the attacks against Breaking the Silence aren’t the act of an extensive network operating with at least a degree of coordination. What began as some accusations on Channel 20 continued with a venomous video published by the Im Tirtzu movement, which was immediately followed by demands from the My Israel group (founded by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked) to prohibit Breaking the Silence representatives from visiting schools. Somehow, Education Minister Bennett succumbed to their demands within a day. In the background, there was also a blatant attack on President Reuven Rivlin. At first, they tried to link him to Breaking the Silence. That failed, because the president made sure to defend the IDF’s moral standing at the HaaretzQ conference in New York. And then the “flag affair” happened, involving Rivlin, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the Israeli flag.

As usual, Im Tirtzu delivered the most extreme elements of the assault. Its ubiquitous video showed the word “Shtulim” – Hebrew for implanted, or mole – above pictures of four left-wing activists who looked like they’d been plucked from a “Wanted” list. The video didn’t leave much room for the imagination: “Shtulim” is another way of saying “traitors.”

When one of the four featured activists, Dr. Ishai Menuchin – executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel – says he felt as if the spilling of his blood was being permitted, you can understand why he reached that conclusion. (By the way, Menuchin did reserve duty until an advanced age – in the Givati Brigade, of all places.) The claims that these four organizations are “collaborating with the enemy” have been rejected by the two previous military advocate generals, Avichai Mendelblit and Danny Efroni. Indeed, the two told Haaretz that they are often assisted by these human rights organizations.

The mainstream media has provided the complementary side of the trend by airing Im Tirtzu’s videos. As journalists, they cluck their tongues and mock the style of the videos, but reap higher ratings. This approach works well in conjunction with media coverage of the current terror outbreak, which is treated relatively superficially and is often an attempt to tackle these issues without providing any broader context. Here, the goal is not to damage the left-wing organizations, but rather marketing a slant on the current reality for Israelis – as if we have the exclusive capability to both maintain the occupation indefinitely and remain the most moral army in the world. But the truth is, it’s impossible to do both. Also, there’s no empirical proof that the IDF is the most moral army in the world (a cliché Rivlin himself employed earlier this week).

In many cases, the IDF makes an effort – and sometimes a tremendous effort. But it is still a giant war machine. When it is forced to act to defend Israeli civilians and advance into crowded, urban Palestinian territory – as it did last year in Gaza – it causes lots of casualties, which will include innocent civilians. And its control of the occupied territories involves, by its very nature, many unjust acts: limiting movement, entering civilians’ homes, making arrests and humiliating people.

It is a reality that every combat solider in the West Bank, regular or reservist, rightist or leftist, is aware of. I can attest to it myself: For more than 10 years I was called up to serve in the West Bank many times, as a junior commander in a reserve infantry battalion – before and during the second intifada. I didn’t witness anything I considered to be a war crime. And more than once, I saw commanders going to great lengths to maintain human dignity while carrying out complex missions, which they saw as essential for security. Even so, many aspects of our operations seemed to me, and to many others, to fall into some kind of gray area, morally speaking. In my battalion, there were also cases of inhuman treatment and abuse of Palestinian civilians.

Continued @

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.692603

http://isradocu.blogspot.co.il/2014/06/tamir-yacobi-breaks-silence.html#.VnW1m5MrK1s

Op-ed: The Israeli public should be grateful for soldiers who insist on their Jewish right to maintain ethical standards during or after their military service.

Merav Betito
Published: 12.16.15, 23:25 / Israel Opinion

You don’t really know what goes on there. It's convenient to repress the fact that our children don uniforms and turn into other children's nightmare. You don’t really know what goes on there, when a high school student enlists and finds himself shortly afterwards in the middle of the bedroom of someone else's parents in the dead of night.

You don’t really know what goes on there, when a youth movement instructor is stationed in Hebron as an operations sergeant and is afraid to say out loud: "You can't take this necklace, it belongs to someone." You don’t really know what it's like to serve in the territories.

And neither do I. My military service was one of the most pivotal experiences in my life. It outlined the professional road I chose, taught me about my strengths and weaknesses, shaped the way in which I look at the Israeli society and emphasized the definition of my identity as a citizen of the State.

The military service chapter is one of the broadest common denominators defined for us by new Zionism. Nonetheless, Israeli democracy is robbing the right of hundreds of soldiers and officer to openly speak about their service experience. The moment a military service candidate receives an accurate document dictating the insights he will receive during his period as a soldier, as well as the spectrum of feelings he will experience after seeing his best friend beating up Arabs, seems closer than ever.

The war, just like the military rule within Palestinian neighborhoods, is an ongoing event which affects and shapes the consciousness of anyone taking part in it - soldiers as well as citizens, adults as well as children, commanders as well as fighters. And there is no success in the groundless attempt to influence the way soldiers see events they have taken part in.

The destructive narrative, which sees the soldier as the sum of the government's desires - long after he has been discharged from military service - is a clear danger to the future of Israeli society. The soldier has many faces: He comes in a variety of shades and beliefs and in a wide range of lifestyles and values, and there is no point in denying the fact that just like his faces are different, so are his opinions.

Throughout Jewish history, including the biblical times, the Jewish people aspired to maintain their fighters' moral values and not to present them as killing machines. It is so strange, therefore, that soldiers who insist on their Jewish right to maintain ethical standards during or after their military service are accused of degrading it, and it's concerning that senior government officials, who are in charge of society's integrity, are inciting the public against them, hoping to gain political power which will preserve their place in the government.

In the past few weeks, members of the Breaking the Silence organization - IDF soldiers - have been turned into the punching bag of an impassioned crowd, vigorously encouraged by public representatives and journalists aiming for a patriotic democracy and marking the treacherous leftist. How is it possible that the defense minister, a former chief of staff, a former member of the Labor Movement, has come out to fulfill the mission of pushing Breaking the Silence outside the camp?

We are not talking about a security-related issue here, but about moral questions which encounter a difficult reality of a soldier versus a citizens. In high school classes, it isn't really possible to offer rules of thumb for the scene which "David the Nahalite" took part in, simply because there are no such rules. Every person responds differently to the crazy drama of life, and every soldier acts differently when facing a Palestinian boy with a rock in his hand.

The courageous soldiers from Breaking the Silence have every right to point to the grave outcomes of the occupation, and it is the Israeli public's duty to be grateful for their service as gatekeepers.

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4740114,00.html

Breaking the Silence's Yuli Novak has repeatedly stated on Israeli television that not a single testimony publicised by her organisation has been proven false. Is that so?

Perhaps she should start by checking with Nadav Wieman, the activist coordinator at her organisation. It's worth asking what his team commander from the army thinks about the testimonies that Wieman supplied, because as opposed to anonymous testimonies, when you publish something in your name, like Wieman did, you expose the statement to criticism and public judgment, and sometimes even to responses from other soldiers who were at the event you describe, at the same place and at the same time, and somehow they tell the story a little bit differently.

This is exactly what happened when Dor Hadad, the team commander of the Nachal brigade's commando unit, saw a testimony published by a former subordinate of his, Nadav Wieman. Wieman isn't just anybody - he's an employee of Breaking the Silence. Hadad's response is visible in the picture.

Here's an extract from Wieman's statement:

"Nadav, combat soldier in the reserves in the Nachal reconnaissance company, now a tour guide and activist coordinator in Breaking the Silence. Nadav describes how in the course of arresting someone in Balata, he and his team proceeded on foot from the refugee camp while using a detainee as a human shield."

For those familiar with the procedure for arrests or knows where Balata is, this testimony is awkward. For the rest of us, read the response of the commander and see for yourselves.

https://www.facebook.com/Israel.MyTruth/photos/a.1562860420619879.1073741828.1535880456651209/1580634372175817/?type=3&theater

@yitz_lauterbach

I am writing this in English because I want everyone to understand, not just the Israelis.

Dear Breaking the Silence, I too served as an infantryman in the West Bank, Lebanon, and the disengagement from Gaza. I too served in the Nachal, in what was probably the most left-leaning company in the army at the time until I finished my operational training. I have continued to serve Israel in various capacities, abroad and here in Israel, since my discharge in 2007.

I have read your various posts and “testimonies”. If you saw someone get hit for “no reason”, why did you not speak out then? If you thought that your actions were immoral why did you not have the intestinal fortitude to report them to your commanders and officers? Why did you wait years to tell stories to audiences abroad? Stories that include a lot of hearsay, jumping to conclusions, a lack of knowledge about the incidents in question, I could go on but you get my point. The stories you tell seem to have little basis in the reality that I remember.

I remember being told in every briefing that all civilians were to be treated with respect, that in case of a firefight we were to avoid returning fire if there were civvies in the area.

I remember going into Lebanon and running out of food and being told that we were not allowed to touch the food stores in the houses we were in, that rule only being broken after realizing that we physically wouldn't make it back to Israel on foot on a starvation diet (I lost between 10-15 lbs/ 4-8 kg that week).

I remember officers telling soldiers not to sleep on the beds and mattresses or damage anything unnecessarily, this in houses with tank shell holes in them.

I remember the civilians that we would give food to in Hebron until we realized that they were carrying out recon on us and that their brothers would throw rocks at us after they would leave.

Why do you rail against soldiers (your own brothers-in-arms) who carry out missions in extremely complex areas of operations which are 100 percent legal according to international law? There is nothing “Nazi-like” about conducting routine checks at checkpoints for explosives and/or weapons, nor is there anything wrong about setting up mobile checkposts in known “hot areas”. There is certainly nothing wrong about arresting members of terror cells in the middle of the night. These are all things that are/ would be done by any sensible military force that would find itself in the same situation.

I will tell you why. You are not an organization that wants the IDF to be an ethical force. If you were, you would work with the chain of command in order to find those who do not act according to the ethics and commands of the IDF and punish them, all without garnering media attention and demonizing the entire army. You are an organization whose sole purpose is the demonization of Israel in the US and Europe. I can have respect for those who disagree with me but not for those who undermine democracy by running to other countries and telling exaggerated stories about us in order to sate their conscience for something they may have done or witnessed when they were young and no moral backbone.

I too have Broken my Silence.

https://www.facebook.com/Israel.MyTruth/photos/a.1562860420619879.1073741828.1535880456651209/1580381078867813/?type=3&theater

(Pictured: Myself, prepping for one of our entries to Lebanon 2006) — with Yitz Lauterbach.

I’m also breaking the silence.

Operation Protective Edge (Summer 2014)

I’m serving as a pilot in reserves and working as a pilot for El-Al. On the third day of fighting, after returning from a trip to Hong Kong, I presented myself for reserve duty in the squadron and was put on stand-by, waiting for targets and the signal to go to air. After a few hours I was sent on an offensive mission in Gaza.

I took great care to ensure that everything is in place so that the explosions would strike the target precisely, without mistakes. We get closer to the destination and then the supervisor comes on the radio and announces “Flight formation: Wait. There’s no go-ahead to strike.”

I ask “what’s the reason?” and he responds, “there’s no go-ahead to attack because the target isn’t clean”, meaning that there’s a suspicion that attacking would harm uninvolved civilians and therefore the attack is being halted.

So we wait.

The wait is long and exhausting. From time to time the supervisor updates us but there’s no change in the status of the target. And finally after a long, long wait and when we’re just about to run out of fuel, we turn around and go back to land with the bombs still on board the plane.

This is my Air Force, this is my army.

Yoav Kisch, Member of Knesset in the Likud party, served as a fighter pilot in reserves in the Air Force.

https://www.facebook.com/Israel.MyTruth/photos/a.1562860420619879.1073741828.1535880456651209/1580070098898911/?type=3&theater

I'm sick to death of the Zionism of horseshit, of the incitement which prides itself on hatred and, yes, that 'beautiful face' of fascism. It's up to every one of us. We can stand up now, or be put down later. Like dogs.

Bradley Burston Dec 22, 2015

What's the sound that fascism makes when it starts getting close?

The sound a mouth makes when it's closed.

What's the sound that a government makes when it's inching closer, law by law, blind eye by blind eye, to fascism?

It's the choking sound of acceptance a government makes when its ruler is also head of five key ministries, putting him in charge of such matters as deportation, citizenship status, registration of religious identity, summary detention of non-citizens, keeping diplomacy dead, and, most importantly, as minister of communications, overall control of the news media.

It's the same sound that hardline "pro-Israel," groups like CAMERA or the Zionist Organization of America fail altogether to make, when Israelis hurl death threats and accusations of treason at their own president and former generals for no more than sharing a room with someone they don't like.

Or when the father of a suspected Jewish terrorist is widely quoted as calling Israel "the most anti-Semitic state in the world since the Third Reich," terming its Supreme Court a "Judenrat."

"Just wait a second," you may be thinking. "I've heard that there's a palpable threat to Israel and its democracy. Something about NGOs and foreign money."

You heard right.

There does exist a foreign-funded organization of Israelis whose actions, both in Israel and abroad, severely tarnish the reputation of the state of Israel, and threaten Jews both here and overseas.

In fact, the organization's words and deeds meet Natan Sharansky's 2004 definition of the New Anti-Semitism: they demonize, apply double standards to, and delegitimize, Israeli Jews.

The name of this organization is Im Tirtzu.

You may know Im Tirtzu as the only Israeli organization which, a court once ruled, may be publicly and legitimately be characterized as fascist.

You may also know the group from its massive, Der Sturmer-quality 2010 highway billboards bearing a caricature of then-New Israel Fund chair Noami Chazan.

Or you may know Im Tirtzu from its close associations with leaders in Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, in particular its current role in spearheading and coordinating a controversial media, ministerial and legislative onslaught against Israeli human rights groups, in particular, Breaking the Silence, the organization of IDF veterans.

So acceptable has Im Tirtzu become in the culture of Israel's pro-occupation right, that when Likud back bencher Yoav Kish submitted a bill to punish human rights groups which accept donations from foreign countries, the idea of taking legislative dictates from Im Tirtzu posed no problem whatsoever.

As Kish told Channel 10 television late Saturday, "It's true that Im Tirtzu met with me, and they told me, 'We know you're submitting a bill like this. It's desirable that you use the word 'shtulim' [connoting a traitorous, foreign-directed, terrorist-friendly mole]."
"I did, indeed, make the change, from 'foreign agent.'"

Ironically, Kish – whose bill would also ban members of Breaking the Silence and other human rights groups he defines as "shtulim" from further service in the IDF reserves – first came to prominence as an activist in a movement to equalize the burdens of army service in Israeli society.

The bill will, of course, leave untouched the many wildly hate-mongering, but government-shielded, right-wing NGOS and politicians who only take their huge foreign donations from private donors.

Lie by lie, manipulation by manipulation, one obscene, anti-Arab, anti-leftist act of incitement after another, Im Tirtzu rolls on. Im Tirtzu co-founder Erez Tadmor has even boasted of having headed Netanyahu's "message team" for 2015 recent re-election campaign.

But Im Tirtzu, as dangerous and destructive and hate-mongering toward Palestinians and the left as it surely is, is not the root problem.

In fact, the McCarthyite campaign of the button-down, eema-loves-me-best repulsives of Im Tirtzu has failed in a way they could never have anticipated:

The foam-at-the-mouth lungings of Im Tirtzu have prompted a growing number of Israeli security icons to speak up in defense of Breaking the Silence.

In the end, Im Tirtzu has legitimized Breaking the Silence as no one else ever has.

So it was, as well, when Im Tirtzu went abroad to pursue a supposedly pro-Israel mission: Joining the ZOA and other U.S. pro-occupation groups in seeking to blackball progressive Jewish organizations from taking part in New York's annual Celebrate Israel parade.
Im Tirtzu said this was to make sure the Fifth Avenue parade would reflect only the "beautiful face of Zionism."

The result? Increased participation by the sworn enemies of Im Tirtzu and the ZOA: the New Israel Fund, J Street, Americans for Peace Now, Ameinu, Open Hillel, Partners for Progressive Israel and others.

This is the lesson. A simple one, really. Stand up to a bully – for that, at yellow-and-black-heart, is what a fascist is – and they may well stand down.

But we're facing much more than just one dipshit group of creeps. This is a broad campaign, grass-roots as well as governmental, to bully, intimidate, silence, and in many cases explicitly threaten people whose views take issue with an across-the-board pro-occupation, pro-settlement, exclusively-Orthodox, anti-democratic, anti-Palestinian agenda – and then to lie about it, pretending that it's "centrist" and the consensus.

Let me put it differently, as a person whose friends and colleagues and former military commanders and president – all of whom love Israel – are under threat:

I'm sick to death of the Zionism of horseshit.

I'm sick to death of the patriotism of hogwash. I'm up to here with the Judaism of exclusion, the testosterone-poisoning of quasi pro-Israel hyper-arrogant fanaticism.

I'm sick to death, that is, of that insane right, social media-borne incitement which suggests that the only acceptable Israel, is one which prides itself on hatred, violence, bigotry, and, yes, that beautiful face of fascism.

It's up to every one of us. We can stand up now, or be put down later. Like dogs.

Bradley Burston
Haaretz Correspondent

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.693304