Counter protest to Breaking the Silence
Counter protest to Breaking the SilenceProtest organizers

Nationalist student groups staged a counter protest at Tel Aviv University on Sunday night, demonstrating against the leftist organization Breaking the Silence which gathers unverified complaints of "war crimes" against the IDF.

The Likud student group at the university, together with Yisraelim and Im Tirtzu, was able to protest after pressuring Tel Aviv University, given that the institution initially gave Breaking the Silence permission to demonstrate at the site but banned the nationalist groups.

The protesters sang, danced and waved Israeli flags, and MK Anat Berko (Likud) said, "instead of Breaking the Silence going to parlors in Europe, let them come tell the criticism to the authorized sources, the Criminal Investigation Unit and the attorney's office."

"I want to strengthen the dear students who came to support IDF soldiers, and I came to protest with them against Breaking the Silence," said Berko.

Breaking the Silence has recently come under media attention, after a secret meeting of its leaders was revealed in which they planned to harm Israel abroad by getting it kicked out of the UN. The group has also been revealed to have paid to instigate Arab riots against soldiers, and has maintained alleged ties with the BDS movement seeking to boycott Israel.

After Berko, MK Amir Ohana (Likud) also spoke, saying, "an impression has been created as if the struggle against the lie industry of the organization Breaking the Silence and those like it is a struggle of right versus left, the Likud against Labor - but it isn't, because in this struggle we aren't coming to defend the right or the Likud, we are gathering to defend those who defend us."

"To take from the thousands of interactions in a day between security forces and Arabs in Judea and Samaria the one problematic one and present it as if that is the full picture, as if that's Israeli policy...that - there's no other word - is a lie industry."