The shadowy right-wing group infiltrating lefty organizations
Source: Times of Israel
Ad Kan says its controversial tactics are modeled on human rights organizations, but don’t ask about its funding
hey’re a self-styled whistleblower group, frustrated Israel Defense Forces combat veterans who covertly document what they say are abuses in the West Bank witnessed during their service. Reviled in some quarters of the Israeli public, admired in others, they view exposing this information in the media as an effective means of changing the situation on the ground, while their shadowy funding and questionable documentation methods are raised at every opportunity by their critics.
Readers familiar with recent public outrage in Israel could be forgiven for thinking the above description refers to the left-wing Breaking the Silence NGO. But in fact, it likewise describes the right-wing Ad Kan organization (its name means “No more” in Hebrew), whose members, posing as human rights activists, have infiltrated some of Israel’s left-wing organizations and surreptitiously recorded their activities.
They are shtulim — that ominous Hebrew word for “foreign agents” or “moles” that recently entered the Israeli discourse to describe (and denigrate) both foreign government-funded left-wing NGOs and the right-wing activists embedded in those same groups to spy on them. And while these various human rights organizations are miles apart politically from Ad Kan, have wholly different aims, and would likely resent being compared, Ad Kan founder Gilad Ach maintains his strategy was inspired by them.
“We learned this tactic precisely from these organizations,” he said of the idea to film the activists. “An organization like Breaking the Silence, Anarchists Against The Wall, Ta’ayush, like B’Tselem — what do they do? Film the IDF soldiers, collect documentation on these soldiers from within the state, as in, as citizens, and then bring it to the world.
“We’re using precisely the same method,” he said. “The only difference is that their cameras are out in the open, and ours are hidden.”
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-shadowy-right-wing-group-infiltrating-lefty-organizations/
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