In 2002 the Israeli novelist Irit Linur wrote an open letter to the editor of Ha'aretz:
It is a person’s right to be a radical leftist, and publish a newspaper in accordance with their world view … However, Haaretz
reached a level of radical leftism in which its anti-Zionism is often
turned into malevolent and stupid journalism … When Gideon Levy [Haaretz columnist
and correspondent for Arab affairs] accuses Israel of turning Marwan
Barghouti from a peace seeker to an organiser of suicide bombings, his
accusations are as rational as post-9/11 conspiracy-theories that the
destruction of the Twin Towers in New York was the work of the Mossad.
In a private conversation he once told me he wouldn’t drive 100 meters
to save the life of a settler. It seems to me that his loves and hates
have long been polluting the heart-wrenching reports he files from the
occupied territories. His entire career is infected by hucksterism; He’s
one of very few reporters in the world who reports on Arab matters
without speaking a word of Arabic. He gets simultaneous translation and
that’s enough. This is amateurish journalism. Gideon Levy and Amira Haas hold the Palestinian portfolio in Haaretz.
Like them, I acknowledge the journalistic and human value of these
reports but … as far as they are concerned; Israel will always carry the
blame for Palestinian suffering as well as for Palestinian
murderousness. This is a blinkered and shallow interpretation, ethically
and professionally flawed. Both avoid reporting the atrocities that
Palestinians commit against each other. And there are Palestinians they
never get to encounter: anti-Semites, chauvinists, corrupt, cheering
when terrorist attacks are perpetrated on Israel. When a pro-Palestinian
bias is the most conspicuously consistent feature in their reports I
find it hard to maintain my faith in their articles. And since I am,
excuse me, a Zionist, I don’t feel like getting every morning a dose of
news that is the equivalent of The Voice of Thunder from Cairo [an
all-day radio broadcast in broken Hebrew whose propaganda during the
days before the Six-day War was cranked up to crisis-hysteria levels
seeking to terrify the Israeli populace]. […]
I have come to the conclusion that you and I do not inhabit the same country. More and more of your articles smell like foreign journalism that treats Israel as if it were a remote and repugnant territory.
I get the feeling that the state of Israel disgusts you in some
elementary way. But the thing is, it doesn’t disgust me. I don’t wish to
subscribe to a paper that tries in every conceivable way to make me
feel ashamed of my Zionism, patriotism and intelligence, three qualities
I deeply cherish.
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