Author Amos Oz said that one of the things that allow Israelis to feel good about themselves outside Israel are organizations such as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, and Peace Now. According to Oz, those who throw rocks at Breaking the Silence are the heirs of those who threw rocks at the prophets of Israel in biblical times. Oz spoke at an unofficial Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, ceremony that awarded a prize to Breaking the Silence.
When University President Prof. Rivka Carmi decided in June to cancel giving the Berelson Yitzhak Rabin Award for increasing the understanding between Jews and Arabs award to the controversial group, the general consensus in Israel was that Breaking the Silence had lost its legitimacy and credibility because it transformed from being invested in airing and fixing irregularities committed by the IDF to becoming yet another force attacking Israel in the foreign media. It also no longer provided the IDF with the evidence it collected, relying strictly on anonymous testimonies.
According to NGO Monitor, Breaking the Silence receives around $1 million annually in donations from Human Rights and International Law Secretariat (joint funding from Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands), Trocaire (Ireland), Dan Church Aid (Denmark), Broederlijk Delen (Belgium), Christian Aid (UK), Switzerland, France, CCFD (France), Medico International (Germany), Misereor (Germany), AECID (Spain), EU, ICCO (Netherlands), Norway, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Open Society Institute, and the New Israel Fund.
The group’s literature and videos have been cited numerous times by groups and individuals supporting the BDS movement and perpetrating on-campus anti-Israeli activities in Europe and the US.
A group of university lecturer on Monday gave Breaking the Silence its own crowd-funded award of roughly $5,000, in a ceremony that was conducted under heavy security in a school auditorium. A group of students who protested the award, citing a 500-name petition signed by their peers, were asked to leave. Amos Oz, the keynote speaker, said, “I ask myself why such organizations raise such hostility in so many people,” and mused that “people want to feel good, and Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem don’t let them feel good.”
Oz then compared these groups with other historical groups who were called traitors only to turn up as humanity’s guides. “Even Herzl, who said ‘If you will it, it would not be a fairytale,’ was called a traitor,” Oz said, declaring: “When I’m called a traitor, I pick it off the floor and wear it on my lapel with honor.”
One of the students protesting outside the award ceremony said, “There’s a huge difference between criticism and slandering and delegitimizing Israel around the world.” He told Walla that to give an award to Breaking the Silence is “an illogical act of madness.”