The effort to break Breaking the Silence
The Israeli right wing appears to be succeeding in wrongly portraying the campaign of Breaking the Silence as a threat to the state and the Israeli military.
Any outsider who has spent the past few months listening in on Israelis' public debate over Breaking the Silence might think that it is a vast organization employing thousands of activists. That person would also have reason to believe that the group is ultimately responsible for all of Israel’s security woes.
Breaking the Silence was founded 12 years ago by Yehuda Shaul, a retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who had served in Hebron. Shaul, now in charge of the group’s overseas activities, holds one of just 12 paid positions in the entire organization. For the most part, Breaking the Silence relies on a handful of volunteers, who collect testimonies from soldiers. They are recruited ad hoc in response to specific events, such as the 2014 Operation Protective Edge.
