In recent attack ads against the nonviolent, Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, politician Stav Shaffir alleged that the group and its work were just like Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. In an article and online video, she claimed the BDS movement represents “anti-progressive” politics “based on fear and isolation.” As a member of the…
Picture the scene: A group of young American Jews, visiting Israel for the first time on Birthright, demand more education about the country and its politics, trying to realize an age-old Jewish ideal of sharp, open debate. They form new organizations and movements around Jewish political activism, and they form links with groups of Israeli…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — An official Dutch foreign ministry document listed as an objective actions that “encourage diaspora Jewish communities to voice their opposition to the occupation.” The statement, which is unusual for European governments offering funding for organizations they say are promoting peace of coexistence between Israel and Palestinians, appeared in a report published earlier…
(JTA) — The executive director of Breaking the Silence was detained by Israeli Border Police Friday along with two other activists. The arrested activists — Avner Gvaryahu, the group’s executive director; Achiya Shatz, its communications director; and human rights attorney Michael Sfard — were detained next to a settlement outpost in the southern West Bank,…
Last week, five participants of Birthright walked out on the program and straight onto a tour of the segregated city of Hebron with IDF veterans from Breaking the Silence, where they saw what Birthright desperately tried to hide. They saw the checkpoints, the streets Palestinians aren’t allowed to walk on and the caged windows that…
Katie Fenster says that she wasn’t planning on walking out on her Birthright Israel tour when she arrived. But during the free 10-day trip, she grew increasingly frustrated that the answers to her questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “all came from one perspective” and did not include Palestinian views. “We felt like we weren’t being…
Over the past few weeks, a storm has raged through Israel. I am a member of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli soldiers who testify about what they did in the occupied territories. Our organization is once again under attack in an attempt to undermine our credibility through smearing our name and paving the…
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Imagine for a moment that a soldier is suspected of misconduct in the field. Typically, someone might be expected to report the soldier, prompting the army to investigate. The soldier might deny any wrongdoing. Well, in Israel, a recent case unfolded in almost exactly the opposite way. A soldier admitted to beating…
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