Shooting and stabbing IDF soldiers is not terrorism because they are occupiers, an official from the anti-IDF group Breaking the Silence said.

An official from Breaking the Silence (BtS), a radical left-wing NGO that publicizes testimonies allegedly given by of former IDF soldiers in order to spread criticism of the Israeli military, was reportedly caught saying that he does not consider attacks on IDF soldiers to be terrorism.

Israel’s Channel 20 reported that Nadav Weiman, the public relations coordinator of BtS, recently told activists, “If you shoot at soldiers, you are trying to kill soldiers. You are not a terrorist.”

“If there is another country that is conquering your country, the area where you live, you are allowed to use violent means to fight the conquering entity, only…against soldiers and police officers, but if you stab a soldier at a checkpoint, that is not a terrorist attack,” Weiman said.

Weiman reportedly made the statement to undercover activists for a right-wing Israeli organization, Ad Kan, who were posing as far-left activists in order to penetrate BtS. The undercover activists had been documenting the group’s activities for some time, taking part in preparations, lectures and tours of Judea and Samaria.

The exposure of BtS comes as the Israeli Knesset is considering a bill aiming to prohibit members of the group from speaking at educational institutions.

“I never could have imagined anything like this. As a citizen, as education minister, as a soldier and commander, I feel a special obligation to instill the desire to serve in the IDF and love the country,” Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said.

Acting on Behalf of Foreign Governments

Breaking the Silence, an anti-Israel organization is comprised of veteran IDF combatants who have served since the start of the Second Intifada and are ostensibly committed “to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.”

They are financed by foreign bodies and countries, including an organization operating within the Palestinian Authority (PA)-administered territories

Breaking the Silence received $1,352,500 through the governments of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK and the EU in 2015.

Between 2008 and 2014, the anti-Zionist New Israel Fund gave Breaking the Silence a total of  $707,300.

It also received $303,500 and an additional emergency grant from the Palestinian Fund Secretariat for Human Rights and International Law, operating out of PA-controlled Ramallah—which noted in its 2015 report that it paid Breaking the Silence to bring them at least one negative testimony against the IDF.

While claiming that their goal is to “raise awareness over the everyday reality of serving in the [so-called] occupied territories and to create a discussion about the cost of military control over a civilian population for so many years,” the NGO refuses to post the names of the soldiers who testify.

They have also refused to pass along their accounts to the IDF’s Military Advocate General’s Corps for investigation, despite repeated requests by senior IDF officials. Instead, Breaking the Silence members routinely go abroad to spread their allegations instead of taking their complaints directly to the IDF or civilian courts.

By: JNS.org and United with Israel Staff