And if Dore Gold, Gerald Steinberg and Matan Peleg do not span enough of the political spectrum to convince skeptics that the Breaking the Silence condemnation of the IDF’s performance in Operation Protective Edge is unreliable, how about a bona fide journalist from one of the largest western media conglomerates, the Associated Press?
AUDIENCE AND LANGUAGE REVEALS TRUE GOAL
Although Matti Friedman, after years of service at the AP, eventually went public with his criticism of the AP’s institutionalized biased reporting against Israel, one would be hard pressed to claim Friedman is anything but a sincere and fervent liberal and anything but a right wing Zionist hawk (take a look at his Facebook page if you have any doubts.)
Friedman makes some excellent points in a lengthy comment he posted online about the BtS report. First, and most obviously, war is horrific and people who directly experience it may be traumatized by the experience. Thank goodness that is the case, or ISIS would have been an eternal part of our world scene.
In addition to it being genuinely traumatic to have to kill people, even people whom you are told are trying to kill you, your family and all of your fellow Israelis, soldiers at a level other than the top strategists rarely have a broader contextual understanding of why certain sites are targets. Without that knowledge, what are actually carefully planned military activities the goals of which are to eliminate terrorists may appear to the foot soldiers as “indiscriminate” acts of shooting.
Friedman also sensibly addresses a very different point: consider whether Breaking the Silence is trying to achieve serious and necessary changes in IDF strategy and execution, or is it primarily seeking to publicly tar Israel and the IDF? His conclusion is the latter. And his basis for that conclusion is the way in which BtS speaks and to whom they speak.
Not only was the BtS report funded by outsiders, but the report itself was also addressed primarily to non-Israelis, and certainly not to those in the IDF who can and should – when warranted – implement necessary changes to IDF decision-making.
The primary audience was an international one, and the primary language in which the report was issued was English. Friedman explains:
Any group genuinely fighting for the character of Israeli society should do so in Hebrew, which is the language that Israelis speak. If you’re expending a great deal of energy and money translating your materials into English and speaking to dozens of foreign reporters, as we’re seeing Breaking the Silence do right now, I think it’s fair to ask what, exactly, you’re up to.
And his conclusion, regarding Breaking the Silence’s report:
As long as this state of affairs continues, Israelis will be correct in identifying this group and its sister organizations as people paid by foreigners to say things that a lot of foreigners want to hear Israelis say. And Israelis will continue to live without the strong left that we need – one that comes from Israel, is part of Israel, and is concerned with bettering our society, not with posturing for an audience abroad whose hostile obsession with us has nothing to do with us at all.
The latest Breaking the Silence effort to convince the world that Israel’s military defense forces are misguided, irrational and untrustworthy, actually proves that those adjectives best fit the entity issuing that report.