Veteran IDF Radio morning show host Razi Barkai issued a live apology Monday in his program, 'Ma Boer,' to the residents of Kfar Tapuach in Samaria. The apology was for besmirching them in December, after an incident of vandalism at the Arab village of Kafr Yasouf.
Barkai had said that Kfar Tapuach was “a wild settlement” from which “terrorists” go on the attack “on a regular basis” and suggested, in an interview with Head Ashkenazic Rabbi Yonah Metzger, that the community be “removed.”
He was forced to apologize after the residents of Kfar Tapuach sent a lawyer's letter to the IDF Radio Commander warning of a possible libel suit. The residents' attorney, Doron Nir-Tzvi, wrote: “We are aware that Mr. Barkai is a radical leftist journalist whose personal views have interfered with his objectivity and professionalism for a long time, but it appears that this time he exceeded all bounds of good taste.”
The grassroots Samaria Residents' Council was pleased with the apology. “The time has come,” Council Spokesman Yossi Dagan said, “for the media establishment to understand that the era of the 'sucker settler' is over... For every incitement there will be a response, and for every defamation there will be a lawsuit.”