Love of the Land: Ha'aretz, Holier Than the Pope

Ha'aretz, Holier Than the Pope

YG
CAMERA/Snapshots
04 May '10

Ha'aretz's reaction to the visit of an Israeli Arab delegation with Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi revealed just how tenuous the media outlet's grip on reality is. The delegation's harsh condemnation by those on the right of the Israeli political spectrum was apparently too much for the editors of Ha'aretz, who promptly spoke out to defend the Arab delegation and to attack those who dared criticize it.

An April 30 editorial ("Arab MK's Libya Trip a Path to Mideast Peace") stated:

Hysteria gripped the right wing in the Knesset after an Arab delegation of MKs and dignitaries visited Libya. . . .The tongues of Habayit Hayehudi and National Union, two parties that could unite under the name "the Racist Union," were abruptly unleashed as though they were dealing with an unparalleled act of treason. . .
Libya is not on the list of enemy states. . . Libya signed the Arab League's peace initiative, holds the League's rotating presidency, and its ruler Muammar Gadhafi maintains excellent relations with the U.S. administration.

Following the depiction of Libya as one of the most important and enlightened countries in the world, the editorial writer explains to us, the ignorant readers, the motive and the justice of the Israeli Arab visit:

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz, Holier Than the Pope

Love of the Land: Is the Obama Administration Trying to Silence Critics of its Middle East Policy?

Is the Obama Administration Trying to Silence Critics of its Middle East Policy?

Ron Radosh
pajamasmedia.com
21 April '10

As readers of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal know, last week Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and World Jewish Congress head Ronald S. Lauder purchased full page ads challenging President Obama’s policies on the Middle East and Israel.

Lauder’s ad appeared on April 15th. “We are concerned,” Lauder began, “about the nuclear ambitions of an Iranian regime that brags about its genocidal intentions against Israel. We are concerned that the Jewish state is being isolated and delegitimized.” He continued:

Our concern grows to alarm as we consider some disturbing questions. Why does the thrust of this Administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks? After all, it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate.

Israel has made unprecedented concessions. It has enacted the most far reaching West Bank settlement moratorium in Israeli history.

Israel has publicly declared support for a two-state solution. Conversely, many Palestinians continue their refusal to even acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

The conflict’s root cause has always been the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Every American President who has tried to broker a peace agreement has collided with that Palestinian intransigence, sooner or later. Recall President Clinton’s anguish when his peace proposals were bluntly rejected by the Palestinians in 2000. Settlements were not the key issue then.

They are not the key issue now.

“Appeasement,” Lauder wrote the President, “does not work.” The real threat was not Israeli settlements, but “a nuclear armed Iran.”

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Is the Obama Administration Trying to Silence Critics of its Middle East Policy?

Love of the Land: One question for Bradley Burston

One question for Bradley Burston

Fresnozionism.org
20 April '10

Bradley Burston published a passionate attack on “The Occupation” yesterday, in honor of Israel’s Independence Day. Here’s some of it:

In a country where polls show that nearly two-thirds of the population would cede the West Bank under a future peace deal, Israelis are hostages to the nightmare scenario of permanent Occupation…

The Occupation has become the greatest single threat to the social fabric of the Jewish state. The Occupation causes division, strife, tension and alienation in Jewish families and Jewish communities the world over.

Nothing causes Israel more diplomatic damage than the Occupation, and its outrider, the siege of Gaza.

Nothing delegitimizes Israel more in the eyes of the world – and in the eyes of many Jews – than the nation’s unwillingness or inability to dismantle and end the Occupation…

What will permanent occupation mean for Israel? Not only that the nation will cease to be a democratic state, disenfranchising millions of Palestinians. In the end, permanent Occupation will see to it that Israel will cease to be a Jewish state as well. Israel will have delegitimized itself out of existence.

It will have knowingly opted for and adopted apartheid, and, in the end, either through democracy or through fire, and, thanks to the Occupation, the world community will see to it that an Arab-ruled Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River will finally come into existence.

I have a question which I hope Burston will answer. Because it is just impossible for me to understand his mindset, or that of others who say the same sort of things. Here it is:

How?

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Love of the Land: One question for Bradley Burston

Love of the Land: The Mask Slips on Israel’s Left

The Mask Slips on Israel’s Left

Dishonoring the dead:

Haaretz editor Uri Tuval.

P. David Hornik
Frontpagemag.com
19 April '10

“I don’t want to live in the country of Captain Eliraz Peretz or his mother. My consolations to the family…a family of Jihadist Fascists, and don’t dare let anyone say he was killed for my sake.”

The above quote is from Uri Tuval, editor of the magazine section of Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz. He said it in a Facebook chat with other left-wing journalists, and even some members of his milieu were said to be dismayed at his words. This mini-scandal comes at a time when Haaretz is under attack for its central role in the much larger scandal of the Anat Kam espionage affair.

Eliraz Peretz was a 32-year-old Israeli soldier who was killed last month in a gunfight with terrorists in Gaza. His older brother Uriel died in combat in Lebanon in 1998. Miriam Peretz, the mother, was interviewed on Israeli TV after Eliraz’s death (it being customary in Israel to interview close relatives after the loss of soldiers). The Peretz family are observant Jews; Eliraz lived in the West Bank settlement of Eli.

To his credit, Tuval wrote a gracious apology to the Peretz family. He noted that he too is a soldier and that his father was killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He said he had “stated my personal opinion on the reality we face in a provocative manner, on a forum that I viewed as private,” and that “We seem to disagree over the best way in which to build our national home.”

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Love of the Land: The Mask Slips on Israel’s Left

Love of the Land: Libel

Libel

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
15 April '10

(The original title of this post was "Blood Libel", however the author felt the title was overly strong and retracted the title. I have removed "Blood" but left "Libel")

A few days ago Haaretz splashed a new story across the top of its front page, knowing perfectly well that it would spread like wildfire all over the world: Israel is gearing up to deport tens of thousands of Palestinians. And of course, it did. The fools and the knaves all hugged the story to their hearts and ran with it as far and as fast as they could.

Nothing about this is surprising: not the willingness of Haaretz to harm the country by spreading lies, not the eagerness of our enemies to wield them.

If there's anything at all about the story that's remotely surprising, it's the ease with which it can be disproved. Any reasonable observer of Israel knew immediately that the story couldn't be true as told; the fact that its originators were one of our radical Left NGOs (Hamoked) reinforced this gut feeling. Elder of Ziyon, an anonymous blogger with no public position, sent an e-mail to the appropriate official, who explained that the reality is more or less the opposite of that reported by Haaretz. Here's the full response, though I recommend following the link to read Elder's important comments about the case:

1. The new military order was signed 6 months ago.

2. There are no changes to the repatriation system or the authority/means to repatriate illegal residents in Judea and Samaria. The only difference is that now the process includes a judiciary review.

3. The decision to establish a judiciary committee to review the administrative process of repatriation was taken in response to the Israeli High Court of Justice (בג"ץ) decision that there should be judicial oversight.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Libel

Love of the Land: Awakening the Left

Awakening the Left

The lifting of the gag order on the Anat Kamm affair should prompt some serious introspection on that side of the political spectrum.


Michael Freund
Fundamentally Freund/JPost
15 April '10

The Anat Kamm affair has sent shock waves throughout the military and political establishments. Allegations that the young soldier stole reams of sensitive IDF documents and passed them to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau raise serious questions about basic security procedures and information controls in the army. Sweeping changes will need to be implemented to ensure that such an outflow of documents does not recur, and one assumes that the military brass has already taken steps to plug the leaks.

But of all the secrets that Kamm may have revealed, few are likely to be as explosive as the real bombshell she has unwittingly uncovered. Kamm has cast a spotlight on a critical question that does not get nearly as much attention as it deserves: Why does the Israeli Left seem to produce so much treachery against the state?

Indeed, the sad fact is that if the charges against Kamm are true, she is but the latest in a long line of ideologically-driven left-wingers who have betrayed the country.

Remember Mordechai Vanunu, the former nuclear technician who disclosed details of Israel’s atomic-energy program to The Times of London in October 1986?

Or how about Marcus Klingberg, one of the country’s top military scientists, who passed data to the Soviets out of ideological conviction before his arrest in 1983? And then there is Tali Fahima, who was convicted in 2005 for her contact with Zakaria Zubeidi, a Palestinian terrorist from Jenin who headed the local branch of Fatah’s Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

There are plenty of other such examples, which only leads one to wonder why some on the Left seem to have no compunction about committing duplicitous acts which harm the state.

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: Awakening the Left

Love of the Land: The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

by Uri Heitner, Yisrael HaYom


Yitz
Shilo Musings
13 April '10

The following is my translation of an editorial which appears in today’s Yisrael HaYom newspaper in Hebrew.

Immediately upon exposure of the Kam affair, it was clear that for certain groups in Israeli society, a new hero was born. I knew that Kam would be portrayed as a heroine: a knight of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom for the struggle against the ‘corrupt occupation’ and so forth.

Indeed, since publication of the affair, we’ve read dozens of articles about an important journalist who sits in detention because she revealed the war crimes of Israel. The second journalist involved, Uri Blau, has informed us, without the least bit of modesty, that he did not struggle at all on his own behalf, rather but on behalf of Israel.

Articles of support maintain that the great sin of Kam amounts to the fact that she has a world-view that led her to reveal illegal acts of Israel. Or, alternatively, some argue that she just did her duty of conscience, and that the problematic factor here is the IDF, whose injustices she has exposed.

Well, even if we are a ‘baloney-ridden’ State, such a concentration of nonsense has not been seen here in a long time. Then there is nothing further from the issue of freedom of expression and freedom of the press than this case.

The "journalist" that was arrested, is rather an Internet website gossip columnist. There is no connection at all between her vocation and her arrest.

After all, she was not arrested for her work as a ‘journalist’, but for what she did as a soldier. As a soldier, she stole classified documents, kept them, and passed some on. This is the truth under the false code of "free press".

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

Love of the Land: Israel’s Lefty Rag Haaretz Defends Treason and Espionage

Israel’s Lefty Rag Haaretz Defends Treason and Espionage

P. David Hornik
Pajamasmedia.com
13 April '10

The partial lifting of the gag order on the Anat Kam espionage affair, which had already been exposed to the world media in March by Judith Miller, is stirring up a storm in Israel. The charge sheet accuses Kam of “divulging secret information with the intent to harm the security of the state,” which falls under “serious espionage” and carries a maximum life term. Haaretz, Israel’s left-wing daily, is at the center of the storm — and tying itself in knots to defend Kam, its journalist Uri Blau, and itself.

First, to recap: Kam, born in Jerusalem in 1987 and a gifted student, served as an office clerk under the then head of Central Command, Yair Naveh, from 2005 to 2007. She’s charged with illicitly copying about 2000 computer documents — 700 of them classified secret or top secret — and taking them with her when she left the army. The charge sheet says the documents contained, among other things, “plans of military operations, summaries of discussions within the IDF, deployment and order of battle … of IDF forces … , IDF situation estimates, IDF targets, and so on.” Security sources say they could have cost soldiers’ lives and posed a grave danger.

In 2008 Kam, then a student at Tel Aviv University and a journalist for the Walla news site, delivered a large amount of the documents to Blau. He, in turn, published in Haaretz some stories based on them that were cleared with the military censor. The stories involved assassinations of terrorists in the West Bank who, allegedly, could have been arrested; the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that in such cases, the terrorist has to be arrested rather than killed. (Meanwhile, on Sunday the IDF spokesperson said Blau’s claims in these articles were “upsetting and distorted.”)

When sources in the defense establishment saw the stories, they worried about where they could have come from. The Israel Security Agency, better known as Shin Bet, eventually worked out a deal with Blau where he returned his documents and was promised they wouldn’t be used to incriminate him or his sources. A few months later, in December 2009, the Shin Bet identified Kam as the source of the documents — but the problem was that she admitted to giving Blau far more documents than he had turned over.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Israel’s Lefty Rag Haaretz Defends Treason and Espionage

Love of the Land: Pollster: Ha'aretz Misrepresented Obama Poll

Pollster: Ha'aretz Misrepresented Obama Poll

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
22 March '10

It seems that we have a Ha'aretz trifecta today (see here and here). In the third strike, the Jerusalem Post reports today ("Haaretz fiddled with Obama poll"):

Haaretz misled readers to give the impression that an overwhelming majority of Israelis see US President Barack Obama as “fair and friendly” toward the country, the newspaper’s pollster, Tel Aviv University professor Camil Fuchs, said on Sunday.

Both the English and Hebrew editions of Friday’s Haaretz led with the headline “Poll: Most Israelis see Obama as fair, friendly toward Israel.” The English edition elaborated near a picture of Obama that “69% say Obama is fair and friendly.”

The story itself gives no numbers, but the lead says “A sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair.” The English edition contains no graphic distributing the actual numbers, either online or in print.

The print and online versions of the newspaper’s Hebrew edition included a graphic indicating that just 18 percent of respondents considered Obama “friendly” toward Israel, 3 percentage points fewer than the 21% who called the president “hostile” to the Jewish state.

Ten percent did not know, and 51% defined Obama’s approach to Israel using the Hebrew word “inyani,” which can be translated as “matter-of-fact” or “businesslike,” but not as fair.

Fuchs, who chairs Tel Aviv University’s statistics department, said he received many reactions from people around the world who were surprised by the poll’s headline. He distanced himself from the headline and criticized the way his poll was presented.
“What can I do? Only the editor writes the headlines,” Fuchs said.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Pollster: Ha'aretz Misrepresented Obama Poll

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz Flubs the Facts on Arabs in the Knesset

Ha'aretz Flubs the Facts on Arabs in the Knesset

Yishai Goldflam
CAMERA Media Analysis
10 March '10

The charge that Arabs suffer inequitable treatment in Israeli society — usually simmering on a back burner — flares up anew from time to time.

There is certainly a place for newspaper articles and opinion columns that address concerns within Israeli society, not only between Arabs and Jews but also amongst Jews themselves — between native Israelis and newcomers, between men and women, between Ashkenazi and Sepharadi Jews, and in general, between different groups of people. It is a phenomenon that is certainly not unique to the state of Israel, but which exists in every Western democratic society and even more so in non-democratic societies and countries — one that is, and should be, covered in newspaper columns.

But such media commentary should distinguish between legitimate perceptions based on fact and those based on incorrect information. And no respectable newspaper should lend its pages to a polemic founded on fiction.
This, however, is exactly what the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, did when it provided a platform to Salman Masalha – "a researcher of Arab culture, a poet and a translator," according to the newspaper blurb – to spread false allegations against the State of Israel. ("Israel's apartheid doesn't stop at the West Bank," March 3, 2010)

The writer begins his column with the observation that "poetry and lies have much in common." But while Masalha uses the comment to denigrate Israel's Declaration of Independence as a disingenuous document, the observation is much more relevant as a description of how he, as a poet, crafted a thoroughly dishonest Op-Ed.

For example, Masalha outrageously asserts in the middle of his column:

The alienation is also evident with regard to the central government. This is the only democratic country in the world where one-fifth of the citizens - who are declared to have equal rights, at least on paper – have no representation in the government or in "provisional and permanent institutions...." [emphasis added]

One would expect a respectable writer and intellectual — and even more so, a respectable newspaper editor — to think twice before publishing such an overtly false statement. The inclusion of such an assertion indicates an overall disrespect toward readers who are apparently deemed ignorant of basic and obvious facts – namely, that Arabs are represented not only in government but in nearly every profession in Israeli society.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz Flubs the Facts on Arabs in the Knesset

Love of the Land: Smoke and mirrors over 'lawfare'

Smoke and mirrors over 'lawfare'

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
04 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

The Israeli paper Ha’aretz , along with the Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, appear to have been taken in by Gordon Brown’s noisy but misleading announcement in today’s Daily Telegraph that he will change the law to prevent the abuse of ‘universal jurisdiction’ through threats to arrest visiting Israeli dignatories for ‘war crimes’, an abuse which has caused the cancellation of a number of high-profile visits by Israelis to the UK of which the latest was the planned visit by Livni. Brown wrote:

There is a case now, therefore, for the evidential basis on which arrest warrants can be allowed to be tougher and for restricting the right to prosecute the narrow range of crimes falling under universal jurisdiction to the Crown Prosecution Service alone.

Livni and Ha’aretz naively take this at face value to assume that the UK is to change the law. But this is not so. Brown has merely said he intends to change the law and will consult on the best way to do this. But with a general election to be held by June at the very latest, and with no legislation actually being tabled, there is clearly no time for any such change in the law to occur.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Smoke and mirrors over 'lawfare'

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz's J Street Promotions, Continued

Ha'aretz's J Street Promotions, Continued

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
22 February '10

You got to give them points for consistency. Ha'aretz has systematically ignored substantive criticism of J Street's policies, methods and funding, and so it comes as no surprise that the paper ignores the latest development in the reported snub of a J Street delegation by deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon.

It's not that the paper has ignored the controversy. To the contrary. Coverage includes two news articles (see here and here) and at least one Op-Ed condemning the alleged snub, which appeared today.

While the paper which has paid the matter substantial coverage until now, it nevertheless ignores the fact, that as reported in the Jerusalem Post today, the Foreign Ministry claims that J Street has lied about the whole affair. The Post reports:

The American “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby group J Street made “untrue assertions” about an alleged boycott of the congressional delegation it recently brought to Israel, and about Israel allegedly apologizing to the group for the slight, a senior Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
“[Deputy Foreign Minister Danny] Ayalon did not prevent the delegation from meeting with senior Israeli officials,” as claimed by J Street last week, said Barukh Binah, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general and head of its North America Division.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz's J Street Promotions, Continued

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz Errs on U.N. Resolution 242

Ha'aretz Errs on U.N. Resolution 242

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
10 November 09

Ha'aretz, considered by some the New York Times of Israel, claimed in its editorial Friday:

. . . Israel must seek peace with Syria in the context of Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967: full and secure peace in return for complete withdrawal.

The New York Times corrected this falsehood three times back in 2000, making clear that in fact the resolution does not specify how much and from which territory Israel should withdraw. The Sept. 8, 2000 correction, for example, read:

An article on Wednesday about the Middle East peace talks referred incorrectly to United Nations resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. While Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 Middle East War, calls for Israel's armed forces to withdraw "from territories occupied in the recent conflict," no resolution calls for Israeli withdrawal from all territory, including East Jerusalem, occupied in the war.

Other media outlets which likewise corrected the false claim that U.N. Resolution 242 requires a complete Israeli withdrawal from territories captured in 1967 include the Associated Press, the International Herald Tribune (published in Israel alongside Ha'aretz), the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Will Ha'aretz join them and set the record straight?

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz Errs on U.N. Resolution 242

Love of the Land: Moral Equivalence Run Amok

Moral Equivalence Run Amok

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
2 November 09

Following the Israeli police’s announcement on Sunday of the arrest of a Jewish terrorist, Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, the daily Haaretz published an editorial today that termed him “the Jewish counterpart of ‘The Engineer,’ Yahya Ayyash — Hamas’ expert bomb maker.” That analogy is as false as it is damaging. The two men may have shared an identical passion for killing, but there is a world of difference in their respective societies’ responses.

According to both the police and the Shin Bet security service, Teitel was a lone wolf, perpetrating his terrorist acts with no help from anyone. Moreover, when his deeds became known, he was unequivocally repudiated by his own society. Both the Yesha Council of settlements and the settlement where he lived issued condemnations. So did every settler-on-the-street that Haaretz reporters interviewed. Even on far-Right websites, the paper found very few statements of support for Teitel’s acts (and probably not for lack of trying; Haaretz usually likes nothing better than vilifying settlers). And of course, Israel arrested him itself.

Ayyash, in contrast, belonged to a large, well-funded group whose terrorist acts, far from being denounced, have consistently been lauded by Palestinian society. As leading Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, suicide bombers have “unparalleled” status among Palestinians. “Their pictures are plastered on public walls, their funerals are emotional celebrations, their families often receive visits from state officials. They become almost holy,” the LA Times report continued, “praised by imams at mosques or over loudspeakers at rallies, where children are often dressed as shrouded dead or as pint-sized suicide bombers.” Indeed, Palestinians value terror so highly that in 2006, they elected Hamas — a terrorist organization that not only holds the record for most Israelis killed in suicide bombings but flaunts its prowess in anti-Israel terror as its calling card — to run their government. Palestinians don’t arrest their terrorists; they make them cabinet ministers.

This different societal responses also explains the difference in the amount of mayhem the two men succeeded in perpetrating. In a terrorist career spanning a dozen years and about a dozen attacks, Teitel managed to kill two people. In contrast, Hamas suicide bombers killed 57 people in the two years before Ayyash met his death (at Israel’s hands) in December 1995; as the organization’s chief bomb maker, Ayyash presumably shares credit for most of these deaths. It’s not that Teitel was any less enamored of bombs; it’s just that it’s easier to perpetrate mass murder when you are backed by a large organization and a supportive society.

Haaretz’s false moral equivalence is unlikely to confuse Israelis, who have a clear grasp of the importance of this societal distinction. But it will undoubtedly be seized on by Israel’s enemies to support the canard that settlers are the Israeli equivalent of Hamas and that Israel is thus indistinguishable from the Palestinians when it comes to terror. And it will thereby deal another blow to Israel’s already battered good name.

Love of the Land: Moral Equivalence Run Amok

Love of the Land: Amira Hass Gets Lifetime Award

Amira Hass Gets Lifetime Award

Snapshots/CAMERA
11 October 09

President Obama isn't the only one receiving awards based on as-yet-unattained accomplishments. On Oct. 20, the International Women's Media Network will reward Ha'aretz'sAmira Hass the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award.

According to IWMF's press release:

[Hass] has demonstrated her ability to defy boundaries of gender, ethnicity and religion in her pursuit of the truth in her reporting. In covering the Palestinian Occupied Territories, her goal has been to provide her readers with detailed information about Israeli policies and especially that of restrictions of the freedom of movement.

Presumably, her "ability to defy boundaries" includes her two illegal entries into the Gaza Strip this year. Likewise, her "pursuit of the truth" apparently include her false claimsthat Israel banned diapers and toilet paper from entering the Gaza Strip and her understatement concerning the amount of industrial fuel that Israel permits into the Gaza Strip.

Perhaps her award should be Lifetime Achivement for Going Where No Diapers and Toilet Paper Have Ever Gone Before.

Love of the Land: Amira Hass Gets Lifetime Award

Love of the Land: Ha’aretz Writers are Subversive

Ha’aretz Writers are Subversive

FresnoZionism.com
09 October 09

The Ha’aretz newspaper is… something else.

Called the “NY Times of Israel”, Ha’aretz writers are often far more anti-Israel than those of the NY Times, which is no slouch in that department.

The previous editor, David Landau, famously told former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel was a ‘failed state’ which needed to be ‘raped’ into a settlement with the Arabs by the US (I originally thought that Landau must have been thinking of the Hebrew word “לאנוס” which means both ‘to force’ and ‘to rape’, but then I discovered that he had come to Israel from the UK at the age of 23). He also said that this would be a “wet dream” for him.

One writer, Gideon Levy, accused Israel of committing ‘war crimes’ on the first day of the Gaza war. And Amira Hass, here validating the libelsof the Goldstone report, is as eloquent a spokesperson for the Palestinian cause as you will find anywhere.

Today it’s Akiva Eldar doing the devil’s work:

The U.S. administration is furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama, Democratic congressmen close to Obama told an Israeli source who returned from a visit to Washington this week.

The congressmen even hinted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been personally involved.

The source, who met in Washington with administration officials and members of Congress, told Haaretz he was stunned by the level of anger there over attempts to portray Obama to the American public as an enemy of Israel because of his efforts to restart peace talks and freeze settlement construction.

This appears in the ‘diplomatic news’ section of Haaretz.com (English).

So an unnamed source is ’stunned’ by unnamed congressmen who are ‘furious’. One of the most basic principles that an intelligent person applies when making judgments about accusations like this is to ‘consider the source’, but Eldar — in a news article — doesn’t tell us. This is more ‘National Enquirer’ material than responsible journalism.

I haven’t heard Netanyahu say anything like “Obama is an enemy of Israel”, have you? And if Obama is “furious” at Netanyahu, I haven’t heard him say that either. So why present an unsourced slander against the PM in a news article?

There can be only one reason, which is to strike a political blow against him in Israel and to discredit him in the US.

This is not a bit surprising, when you consider Eldar’s degree of left-wing extremism. Recently, he argued that the concessions Olmert offered in negotiations with the Palestinians were insufficient to compensate them for years of ’struggle’! Struggle indeed.

Love of the Land: Ha’aretz Writers are Subversive