The Israeli government took a prominent anti-occupation NGO to court this week in an effort to force the NGO to reveal the names of former Israeli soldiers who testified about potential war crimes they witnessed while serving on duty in the Palestinian Territories.
If the court rules in favor of the state, it will have a chilling effect on whistleblowers in Israel, many of whom will likely be too afraid to speak out if they know the government can sue to obtain their identities.
The NGO on trial, “Breaking The Silence,” is made up of former Israeli soldiers who publish anonymous testimonies about unethical and illegal behavior they say they saw while on patrol in the West Bank and Gaza.
Breaking The Silence published a damning 200-page report after Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the brief but deadly war that took the lives of over 2,200 Palestinians.
Since then, politicians and right-wing groups in Israel have waged a war of their own on Breaking The Silence. Last year, the group was infiltrated by spies with hidden microphones who were working for the right-wing group Ad Kan; Israeli lawmakers have banned Breaking The Silence’s staffers from doing events on army bases or in public schools; the Prime Minister himself (and several Israeli ministers and cabinet officials) have heaped public scorn on the group.
Now, Israel’s state attorney is trying to force Breaking The Silence to reveal the names of at least one former IDF soldier who provided anonymous testimony about possible Israeli war crimes in 2014. The trial began Sunday in a courtroom in Petah Tikva, Israel.
If the government is victorious, it would endanger Breaking The Silence’s existence. Michael Sfard, a lawyer representing Breaking the Silence, told the judge on Sunday that the group would be destroyed if it broke its promise to soldiers and provided names, according to The Washington Post.
Without Breaking The Silence, the Israeli public and much of the world will only hear the IDF’s own version of events. Many people would argue that whistleblowers are valuable to the democratic process because there are certain things that can only be said safely if anonymity is guaranteed.
-HS
