This is the letter that was sent out by New Israel Fund (NIF) CEO Liam Getreu to youth group leaders luring them to get involved with the nefarious activities of the NIF:
Dear Youth Movement Leaders,
Next month, as part of our launch of the book “Kingdom of Olives and Ash”, Avner Gvaryahu, executive director of Breaking the Silence, will be in Australia.
NIF would like to invite you to a community roundtable in Melbourne on Friday 8 June at 12:30pm (location: Glen Eira Town Hall, room TBC).
It will be a good opportunity for people across a broad spectrum of our community to express their views about Breaking the Silence’s work, ask Avner any questions you have, and contribute productively to our community’s discourse about Israel.
What unites us is our deep commitment to the Zionist vision and the success of Israel.
There are different views, however, on the best way of achieving these objectives. These differences are healthy. Having open, constructive dialogue amongst well-intentioned people with varied and unique viewpoints and experiences contributes to the vibrant and diverse discourse that we treasure in our community.
I hope you can join us for an interesting discussion. Please let me know if you can make it.
Kind regards,
Liam Getreu
Betar Melbourne conducted a silent protest of Breaking the Silence (BTS) and the New Israel Fund (NIF) outside the venue of the “Community Round Table” event at Glen Eira Town Hall around 12:30 pm on a wintry Friday June 8th.
The organisers of the protest had stressed that the intention of this protest was to share the facts about ‘Breaking The Silence’ and the ‘New Israel Fund’ as well as show their opposition. As this was a silent protest they did not interfere with the small number of people who entered the building. In fact it did appear that the number of protesters exceeded the number of people attending the NIF event inside.
The protesters stood outside Glen Eira Town Hall under the Betar banner and handing out “fact sheets” that they had prepared and printed, to those entering the venue, enabling discussion whilst presenting their opposition to BTS and the NIF.
David Southwick MP did a short interview. It was suggested that he might consider going inside to attend the NIF event but actually that wasn’t possible as there councillor officers excluding those who had not been specifically invited from entering.