Switzerland Defends Funding for Breaking the Silence
Image by Getty Images
Swiss government officials defended their decision to fund an exhibition by Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group that exposes alleged Israeli war crimes.
Breaking the Silence is scheduled to put on the exhibition next month at Zurich’s Kulturhaus Helferei with funding from the Swiss federal government and the municipality, Swiss officials confirmed this week to the news site nrg.co.il, citing Switzerland’s “commitment to increasing dialogue about human rights.”
Founded in Israel in 2004, Breaking the Silence uses testimonies, mostly anonymous, by Israeli soldiers who recount their experiences serving in the West Bank and their interactions with Arab population there as well as in eastern Jerusalem, Lebanon and Gaza. Breaking the Silence’s founders have said they wish to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
“This event featuring a highly politicized fringe Israeli organization is inappropriately and immorally sponsored by the Swiss foreign ministry, the Municipality of Zurich and several church groups that are active in anti-Israel campaigns,” the NGO Monitor group wrote in a statement published Thursday about the planned event.
In Israel, Breaking the Silence has generated a heated debate, with supporters crediting the group with raising awareness to what they consider to be immoral effects of occupation, and critics accusing them of spreading falsehoods and helping Israel’s enemies to weaken and isolate the Jewish state
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
