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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily

I often refer to Haaretz as Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily. It's a quip I got from Steven Plaut, a professor at Haifa University, who sends daily email updates that I've been getting for years.

For those of you who wonder why I refer to Haaretz that way, Caroline Glick provides two prime examples here. The problem is that while we all know what lessons we ought to be learning from Haaretz's latest fiascoes, most of us aren't learning them.
As for the State of Israel, depressingly, what the Haaretz spy scandal demonstrates is that the state is utterly unwilling to deal with this dangerous state of affairs. Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin stated that Israel will not change its screening process of candidates for military service. In the post-Kamm IDF, religious youths will continue to be grilled about their willingness to expel Jewish Israelis from their homes, and radical leftist youths will not be questioned about their loyalty to the state and willingness to keep the IDF’s secrets.

So, too, Diskin admitted that the Shin Bet was loath to aggressively pursue the investigation because its officers didn’t want to be accused of impinging on freedom of the press. Because he was a journalist, Blau was not seriously investigated and was let off the hook even as he lied to investigators. And the Shin Bet gave Haaretz the rope with which to hang it by requesting a gag order in order to give Blau more time to do the right thing – in spite of the fact that he had already demonstrated his bad faith and flagrant contempt for the law.

Ma’ariv and Globes both reported that thousands of Israelis canceled their subscriptions to Haaretz this week. Haaretz denied the reports. But really, it doesn’t care. Haaretz’s target audience is not Israeli. It is global. And there it remains the champion of those who seek an Israeli affirmation of their anti-Israel attitudes.
If so many newspapers are supposedly collapsing because they have no more print subscriptions, how is Haaretz surviving? The Europeans? The New Israel Fund? An interesting question indeed.

1 Comments:

At 6:52 AM, Blogger NormanF said...

In a country where it has only a 7% market share and in which Israelis read it more for its business reporting than for its far leftist opinion, what keeps Haaretz financially afloat?

The upshot of the Kam affair is that, despite aiding and abetting treason, nothing is going to happen to Haaretz and Israel's leftist elites will do nothing to change the way the IDF screens recruits. After all, the revanants are far more dangerous than far leftists bent on betraying the country. Politically correct myths do die hard in Israel.

 

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