As Expected, Breaking the Silence’s Discredited Spokesman Slanders the IDF Again - by Simon Plosker

Ultimately, Dean Issacharoff’s opinion piece isn’t meant to improve the behavior of IDF soldiers or to help the IDF deal with abuses if and when they occur. The only reason for publishing an article in an Irish media outlet is to defame the IDF and drag Israel’s name through the mud. The Journal.ie has given a platform for a discredited spokesman from a discredited organization.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
20 February '19..

The Journal.ie, an Irish media outlet published an opinion piece by Dean Issacharoff, the spokesperson for Breaking the Silence, a highly politicized organization that collects anonymous testimonies of Israeli soldiers of alleged and most often unsubstantiated misdemeanors or “war crimes” that it presents to a mainly foreign audience as a means of fighting Israel’s “occupation.”

'At first, I hated shooting school children with rubber-coated bullets ... but after a few months in Hebron, we would high-five each other every time we hit one', writes Dean Issacharoff.https://t.co/QQlupZHt7g

— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) February 20, 2019

As journalist Jake Wallis Simons recounted back in 2013 when he conducted interviews with BtS staff:

It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.

As is the case in all democracies, the IDF is an organ of the state, not a political decision-maker. If the goal of Breaking the Silence was simply to clean up the Israeli military, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Instead, the aim is to “end the occupation”, and on this basis it secured its funding.

It appeared, therefore, that these former soldiers, some of whom draw salaries from Breaking the Silence, were motivated by financial and political concerns to further a pro-Palestinian agenda. They weren’t merely telling the truth about their experiences. They were under pressure to perform.

Indeed, I later discovered that there have been many allegations in the past that members of the organisation either fabricated or exaggerated their testimonies.

Issacharoff himself was found to have fabricated his own testimony in 2017 after an Israeli legal investigation concluded that his claims that he assaulted a Palestinian man during his military service were false.

Issacharoff’s fellow IDF soldiers and commanders also called out his claims.

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