The mayor of
Cologne succumbed to Israeli pressure and cancelled a planned exhibition in his
city of Breaking the Silence, an
Israeli organisation that collects and publicises testimonies of former Israeli
soldiers about human rights violations committed or observed during their army
service.
If they
can’t break them, the Israeli government, wishes to at least silence them:
- We will not be complacent when an organization whose whole purpose is to
tarnish IDF soldiers acts in the international arena in order to cause serious
damage to Israel’s image. - Israel
considers the more than a thousand Israelis who have given these testimonies to
be traitors and or liars.
It now turns
out that Cologne’s mayor has succumbed yet again, this time to criticism over
his decision, and the exhibition will take a place at a later date. To be fair,
the exhibition should not have been scheduled – as it was - to be part of the
festivities marking 50 years diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel.
The mayor of Cologne, however, was right to quickly find a solution for the
exhibition to take place after all.
The work of Breaking the Silence is laudable and
deserves to be supported.
