[TAU, Anthropology, teaching assistants to Prof' Haim Hazan] Eyal Niv & Matan Kaminer, anarchists and radical activists

Eyal (Niv) Clyne

Eyal (Niv) Clyne was last year a teaching assistant to Prof' Haim Hazan at Tel Aviv University and is an independent researcher who runs his own blog.   He has been active in anti-Israel organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights---Israel, the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, and Breaking the Silence.   According to NGO Monitor, PHR-I claims that they work to “uncover Israel’s mechanisms of bureaucratic violence which is hidden from the public eye.”   They have referred to the IDF as the “Israeli occupation forces” and allege that Israeli physicians do not report on Palestinian prisoners being tortured.   PHR-I provides “first aid training to violent protesters at the security barrier near Bil’in.”   As for the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, NGO Monitor reports that Jeff Halper, who heads this NGO, routinely accuses Israel of engaging in “apartheid,” and his organization routinely accuses Israel of engaging in “ethnic cleansing and state terrorism.”   ICAHD supports BDS and the Durban Strategy, and during the 2007 UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, ICAHD’s representative referred to “Israeli crimes, including its bloody and sadistic actions in Gaza and its atrocities.”   According to NGO Monitor, Breaking the Silence is not much better than the other two organizations that Eyal Clyne was involved in, for Breaking the Silence is active in accusing Israel of committing war crimes, had members who sought to break Israel’s siege on Gaza with the Jews for Justice for Palestinians boat Irene, and Breaking the Silence actively collects testimonies from former IDF soldiers with the objective of painting Israel in a negative light.

On December 16, 2010, Eyal Clyne spoke at an event sponsored by the University College London’s Friend’s of Palestine group.   The event was entitled “why I am an activist?”    Eyal Clyne claimed that he grew up in a situation where the occupation exists and can imagine Palestinians who don’t know what freedom means for they are born into this situation like him.   He claimed that Israel justifies every thing with security but that this is problematic for there are cracks in this story.   He claimed that house demolitions are a crack, for over 20,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished and ninety percent of them are not demolished for security reasons but because they lack a permit.  He did not site a source for this statistic nor did he explain why these people were denied permits.  Then, there is the fence, whose name was changed according to Clyne so that Israel would not be accused of engaging in “apartheid.”  He claimed that Israel is trying to explain this fence with security explanations, but if one looks into the fence project, it is three times as long as green line and 80 percent of the fence is located inside the West Bank, implying in his view that security has nothing to do with the fence.   Clyne did not mention how the fence has saved countless Israeli lives and how Israelis living in Judea and Samaria or East Jerusalem would not have received security protection if the fence was built along the green line.  He mentioned how checkpoints separate Palestinian lands, how settlements in his view have nothing to do with security, and how confiscating lands has no security logic.   By stating this, he ignored numerous IDF studies which show that the settlements combined with holding onto Judea and Samaria has enhanced Israeli security.  According to Clyne, the main issue is a “story of exclusivity.”   He claimed that he grew up in an “illusion” that he is living in a democracy.   Of course, he did not mention how Palestinian terrorism led Israelis to wanting to be separated from Palestinians.   Nevertheless, these things caused Clyne to reach three conclusions.   The first is that he can’t trust Israel as an Israeli.   Saying this in the UK of course enhances anti-Israel sentiment there, for if an Israeli can’t trust Israel, then how can a British person trust Israel?  The second one is that certain things are beyond politics and that Israel’s actions put Israelis in danger for Israel ignores “issues of justice, human rights, and freedom.”  He did not provide evidence regarding how Israel’s actions put Israelis in danger nor did he mention how Palestinians have ignored Jewish human rights and how Arab nations have ignored issues of justice for Jewish refugees from Arab lands.   Nor did he mention how Israel offered the Palestinians the opportunity to be a state in the past but how the Palestinians rejected it.  The third one is that he doesn’t want people to get away with things.   Clyne claimed that he “saw perpetrators in Hebron” do “horrific things.”   For example, he claimed that a settler smashed the teeth of a four-year-old Palestinian child and that no one bothered to investigate it.   He also claimed that he was working 24-7 helping out Palestinians during the Gaza War, where he claimed that Israel shot at children.   Of course, he never mentioned how Palestinians who sent rockets to kindergartens and synagogues have never been prosecuted and provided zero evidence that Israel deliberately targeted children during Operation Cast Lead.   Eyal Clyne concluded the youtube video by stating that it is important not to give the situation a title and that it is more important to focus on details, like how many people support ethnic cleansing.   Based on his video, one would never know that the primary actors who are calling for ethnic cleansing are the Hamas organization, who publicly state that unless a Jew lived in Israel before WWI that Jew did not have a right to live in Israel.

Also in December 2010, Eyal Clyne claimed on his blog that a Hebron settler physically assaulted a Breaking the Silence activist and that Hebron settlers “repeatedly and violently targeted” Breaking the Silence tour guides.  He claimed that the Hebron settlers were “terrified” that human rights activists might gain an understanding of what they are doing to “innocent Palestinians.”   He claimed that most of the Hebron settler’s Arab neighbors are “subjected to cruel, continuous violence to the point where their everyday lives become unbearable that many eventually decide to leave their homes.”   Clyne referred to the settlers as “terrorists” and claimed that the police took zero action against such violence.   Thus, Eyal Clyne is in denial about how Palestinians and Breaking the Silence often provoke settlers.  

But as if that is not bad enough, in October 2010, Eyal Clyne discouraged Jewish parents from sending their children on the Birthright Israel program supposedly because Israel indoctrinates them to be pro-Israel activists and does not show the Arab narrative.  He ignores the fact that there areBirthright Israel groups that have visited Bedouin encampments before.     Clyne also claims that Israel indoctrinates Jewish Diaspora kids for militaristic purposes, yet does not note that many of the events that Birthright does are apolitical, such as going on hikes or swimming or doing community service projects that benefit every one such as working in a hospital or going camel-back riding, and that Birthright kids don’t always meet IDF officials.   The author of this article that quoted Eyal Clyne’s blog in full went on to call upon Jewish parents to send their children on the Birthright Unplugged program instead, despite the fact that Birthright Unplugged has a clear political agenda of having participants “develop an understanding of daily life under occupation and apartheid,” actively encourages their participants to support boycotting Israel, and except for a meeting with the Ibdaa Cultural Center, which has a clear political agenda as demonstrated by their participation in the Durban Conference, does not have a single cultural event or trip to see natural beauty on their itinerary.   Also, in 2009, Eyal Clyne participated in a protest that declared that Yisrael Beiteinu was racist and blamed Ariel Sharon for the Second Intifada, despite the fact that Palestinian officials have admitted to the fact that the whole Second Intifada was planned by them ahead of time.