A Closer Look at Who Funds Breaking the Silence

A previous post on May 6 observed that Breaking the Silence, the Israeli group that uses alleged soldier testimonials to accuse the Israeli defense forces of misconduct toward Palestinian civilians, is amply funded by European “humanitarian” organizations.

This raises the question as to why these European donors dedicate so much funding to exposing alleged misconduct by a few Israeli soldiers when the money would have greater humanitarian impact if it were used to sustain the countless victims of Islamic extremism and societal breakdown in the surrounding region. What makes the European fixation on Israel so baffling is that Israel already has in-place institutions to deal with such misconduct. The Israel Defense Forces enshrined a rigorous moral code to which its soldiers and officers are accountable. After every significant military operation, as a matter of routine, investigations into allegations of misconduct are pursued.

The largest donors to Breaking the Silence include European religious-based organizations and governmental groups who justify their support for Breaking the Silence, and other groups that seek to undermine Israel’s standing, on humanitarian grounds. But are these groups fully forthcoming about their motivations? Is there more to this than just empathy for Palestinians, who are already at the top of the list as beneficiaries of financial and political support from western governments and non-governmental organizations and who enjoy the unique privilege of having a UN organization, UNRWA, solely dedicated to their needs?

One of the largest donors to Breaking the Silence is a Catholic organization from the Flemish portion of Belgium. A little history here is revelatory.

The Israeli newspaper, Arutz Sheva, published on May 7, 2015 an article,”Flemish Leader Disowns WWII Nazi Collaboration.” The article describes how the current leader of the right-wing nationalist Flemish party, the New Flemish Alliance, expressed contrition over the role his forebearers played in collaborating with the Nazis. In recent years, a number of nationalist parties in Europe have gone down this same road, disavowing the historic associations with virulent anti-Semitic movements.

Many of these parties, including the New Flemish Alliance’s precursor, the Flemish National League (VNV), were a fusion of Fascist ideology and reactionary elements within the Catholic Church.

This ideological amalgam has been pushed to the margins in European society since World War II. The nationalist and western cultural components increasingly find common ground with the Jewish national state that came into existence in 1948. Post-war leadership of the Catholic Church has gone to great lengths to reject elements that perpetuate hatred of Jews. But that doesn’t mean that the beliefs that formed the building blocks of that political fusion have dissipated.

Has the anti-Jewish core simply undergone a metamorphosis to be more congruent with the leftist-orientation that dominates European culture today? Do residual elements of the Catholic-Fascist amalgam continue to pursue their enmity towards the Jews under the deceptive guise of pursuing “justice” for the Palestinians by incriminating Israel?

More investigation is warranted to reveal what lies under the surface of the expansive support in Europe for groups like Breaking the Silence, that empower disaffected Israelis to undertake the task of undermining the moral and legal standing of the only state in the Middle East whose actions are guided and constrained by a full-fledged embrace of western values.