Many of us know that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is among the best in the world. What we do not know if that the IDF is the most held back and restrained military force in the world, its soldiers, literally, are doing their work with two hand tied behind their back. This puts all of Israelis at peril.
Gilad Ach, the leader of the organization ‘Ad Kan’, meaning, up to here and no farther-a call for ‘enough is enough’, established in 2013, is bringing the truth to light. The organization was widely revealed to the public in Israel when its investigative report, aired on Israel’s prime time TV program, exposed Ezra Nawi and his extreme Left-wing organization Ta’ayush, having been entrapping PalArabs, living in what was formerly known ‘West Bank’, when they were attempting to sell their land to Jewish buyers, what is considered by the Palestinian Authority a crime, punishable by death.
All this boycotting of Israel, the economic and academic sanctions on Israel is a new form of global anti-Semitism. The exclusion and boycott of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the legal sanctioning and blacklisting of Israeli entities supporting the Judea and Samaria Jewish-Israeli communities, 500,000 strong count, did not sit well with Gilad Ach. Gilad, a husband and a father of 5, who lives in Eli, carrying a biblical name, located near the biblical town of Shiloh, a 3,000 resident Jewish community nestled in the Samaria Hills, 45 minutes’ drive from Tel-Aviv.
Shiloh is a Jewish-Israeli community, located 28 miles north of Jerusalem, is neighbored by the Jewish-Israeli communities Eli and Maale Levona and falls under the land of Israel jurisdiction of Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. Shiloh became one of the leading religious shrines in ancient Israel, a status it held until shortly before King David elevated Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the home of the Holy ArK and the Ten Commandments Tablets. The entire congregation of Israel assembled together at Shiloh and set up the tent, the Tabernacle, of the congregation there (Joshua 18:1).
I set down for a cozy interview with Gilad while he was on a short visit to Southern California, this March 2018 month.
“Gilad, why Ad-Kan”, I asked.
GA: “What bothered and bothers me a great deal was and is the flood of anarchists, from all over the world, who, ongoing, arrived and arrive to Israel and attacked and attack IDF soldiers and the state of Israel. This phenomenon I already experienced myself during my six years’ service in an IDF elite unit, ending my military career with a Major rank.
“In Israel, especially in the Judea and Samaria areas, numerous organizations, their members are armed with cameras and accompanied by lawyers, follow IDF soldiers’ activities and bother them at their work while the IDF finds itself helpless in coping with and operating against them. The military, the police, the Shabak-Israel Security Agency and the state prosecutor office simply do not touch the subject. Because, if, for instant, a Swedish citizen bothers an IDF soldier, which is against the law, and he or she is incarcerated, it may create an international incident, which Israel tries to avoid at all cost.”
Gilad took initiative
NG: “Please tell me how you arrived to this point of activities?”
GA: “It started with my late brother who served in the Israeli Navy elite commando unit. His 15 member unit was training for an operation in Latakiyah, Syria. The training required of them to dive in waters that resembles the Latakiyah water, which was the Kishon River, flowing near the city of Haifa, its water is known to be extremely polluted. After service, in the years to follow, the entire unit got sick with scleroderma that developed into lung cancer from which the entire 15 members of the unit passed away.
“When I retired from my six year military service, with help of military comrades, I founded the organization “The Green Israel Forum” which was tasked to investigate and document bodies that pollute Israel. With bringing the evidence and testimonies to TV channels 2 and 10, the authorities are compelled to act. So far we shut down 70 ‘enterprises’ that pollute Israel and some are even engaged in illegal activities that go as far as harming Israel’s security.
“We were active in the field with hidden microphones and cameras that produced astonishing results. For instant, we found illegal private quarry operations that smuggled building material across the border. We saw Arab, European and Israeli groups chopping budding grape vines and causing tremendous financial harm to Israeli farmers. When we called the military, in charge of the Judea and Samaria areas, to take proper action against these hooligans, these anarchist threw rocks at the IDF soldiers who arrived to the scene, demanded photos that could witness our claim of their sabotage work, which were absent, while the anarchists’ lawyer claimed that all available evidence must be presented to the courts, not solved as the local IDF command sees fit.
“At that time I regretted not having photos to witness what we saw from close quarters. It was international humiliation to Israel and I could not sit idle. That is when I gave birth to Ad-Kan.
“At the beginning we started to document everything as by-stander but it was not effective. Then we penetrated the anarchist organizations and in some cases even achieved management position while documenting all evidence in order to bring it to light and to the Israeli public knowledge.”
NG: “What is the future forecast?”
GA: ”We are aiming at documenting and obtaining evidential material about European and United States organizations, aided by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, IHH (Humanitarian Relief Foundation a Turkish NGO) and the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction Israel) that support anarchist activities, and send their activists to the land of Israel in order to confuse the Israeli authorities and create mayhem.
“So far we were successful in shutting down the organization ‘Breaking the Silence’ deceitful testimonial project, a project that caused Israel much harm in the international arena. We send to jail activists from B'Tselem, a Jerusalem-based non-profit independent organization its bogus stated goals are to document human rights violations in the Israeli-“occupied” [sic] territories, combat denial of the existence of such violations, and help to create a human rights culture in Israel. We shut down the organization ‘Achvat Amim’, an initiative, based in Jerusalem that under false claims received funding from the Jewish Agency and brought to the land of Israel paid young Europeans who confronted and stoned IDF soldiers operating in Judea and Samaria. We also issued legal claims against anarchists who attacked soldiers and organizations that paid stone throwers.”
“Our next step is to get the government of Israel to establish a governmental body that will deal with anti-Israel organizations and their connection to terror organization, and believe me it is a labyrinth network.”
Israel must learn to firmly stand its ground
The question is, where is Israel, as a country, in this complex war against her? Where is the government of Israel, as a sovereign body and the authority of the land? And where is the Israeli society that stands in the face of this trend and stands to lose so much of its standing?
Ad-Kan claims, with confidence, that what they have witnessed thus far, over the 15 years since these organizations were established and started to turn into a very dominant factor in the land of Israel and the international arena, the Israeli authorities overlooked the entire grim situation. Completely indifferent to the situation, based on the hopeful premise that if they ignore what is ongoing takes place it will all go away somehow.
However, Ad-Kan thinks differently. Because, if you take a close look at this trend, it constantly gains momentum, not disappearing. Those who want to maintain the Arab-Israeli conflict, like the Palestinian Authority (PA), that jumped onto this bandwagon of subverting Israel and the IDF, is infusing large sums of money into the system while Israel continues to maintain a blind eye policy.
Solutions
Trying to be too nice for too long does not work and has done much harm to Israel.
Gilad thinks that first step in the right direction is to end the lies to the European citizens. In a well-greased PR apparatus, in Berlin, Paris and London Europeans are exposed to a weekly anti-Israel-anti-IDF propaganda report. What they see and read equates the IDF to Iran’s terrorist and evil Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Or, Bashar Assad Syrian butcher army.
We need to admit that one cannot blame these people for their warped sentiments. After all, what they see is an army repeatedly attacking the local Arab population, actions they have become to believe must be stopped.
One has to understand that no matter what, for these Europeans this trend has created an anti-Israel sentiments and an image along which they equate Israel to the South Africa apartheid regime’s conduct, which they talk and conduct seminars about.
If Israel will continue to ignore this disturbing phenomenon, it will not go away by itself. For this one of a kind activities against a sovereign country to go away, it requires action. Gilad Ach and his organization Ad-Kan are the action initiators and entrepreneurs.