Adalah, Yesh Din, and Breaking the Silence say they will sue foreign minister for libel after he
called them ‘terror groups and terror supporters’. ‘Comments constitute mendacious, wild, and thuggish incitement,’ groups say Ronen Medzini
Human rights groups announced Monday that they plan to sue Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for libel after he called them „terror groups” on Sunday.
„Your comments constitute mendacious, wild, and thuggish incitement
which you dreamed up,” the organizations Adalah, Yesh Din, and Breaking the
Silence wrote to Lieberman in a letter.
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„These are not left-wing and human rights organizations, but terror groups and terror
supporters,” Lieberman said Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
announced he would not back a bill establishing inquiry committees to probe the groups.
„All those Adalah, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence, which provide
distorted information, are part of the de-legitimization; all those Marmara
activists, who disrupted the IDF’s efforts to defend Israel, who handed the
names of IDF officers and soldiers to courts across the world and helped
Hezbollah with espionage operations.”
The organizations are being represented by Attorney Michael Sfard, who
responded to the foreign minister’s claims.
„My clients are organizations that promote an agenda of defense of human
rights, coexistence, and peace, and accusing them of terrorism, espionage, and
assisting the enemy is an inexcusable lie,” he said.
„With your irresponsible accusations you have transgressed all accepted
boundaries of public debate. You published libel in order to hurt my clients,
and thus to the best of our understanding committed a criminal offense.”
Sfard went on to say that organization heads stopped themselves from
filing a suit a few months ago, when Lieberman accused them of assisting
terrorists, but after Sunday’s comments could no longer abstain.
„Yesterday we realized that you wrongly interpreted our restraint… and
that you will not likely stop until someone acts on your comments,” Sfard said.
He added that if Lieberman opts to use the immunity granted him as an MK „the
Israeli public will understand that you are afraid of the truth”. Lieberman’s
office refused comment on the letter, saying „it isn’t necessary to respond to
anyone”.
Vote on bill will not be anonymous
Meanwhile initiators of the inquiry committees bill, MKs Danny Danon (Likud)
and Faina Kirshenbaum (Yisrael Beiteinu), gathered the 20 signatures required in
order to cancel anonymity in the vote on the bill.
favor of the bill, though few legislators believe it will pass.
„I hope members of the Likud don’t capitulate to elitist pressure,” Danon
said. Kirshenbaum explained, „Freedom of vote means each person votes according
to his conscience. In such a situation it is important to show the public
exactly where the hearts of their representatives are.”
Moran Azulay contributed to this report
