Haaretz editor Amoz Shoken has apologized to the Goldin family after he sharply criticized the parents of slain kidnapped IDF soldier Hadar Goldin Hy'd {May his blood be avenged) for attacking a newspaper article which targeted them.
The Haaretz television critic , Rogel Alpher, had described the Goldin family's conduct as "mad hubris" after it demanded pressure on Hamas in order to bring their son's body to Israel for burial.
Alpher had among other things described Hadar's brother, Chemi Goldin, as "demonstrating advanced symptoms of a condition which could be described as 'Goldin Condition'.....a cognitive dissonance typified by an inability on the part of the sufferer to distinguish between the dead and the living and his constant protests over the fact that the dead do not receive the same treatment as the living. His distress regarding reality is inevitable since the state relates to the living-but- suffering-from-the-syndrome as if he were dead, while the person suffering from the syndrome demands that the dead receive the same treatment as the living.
Goldin's parents, Leah and Simcha, responded to the article by tweeting Haaretz editor regarding Alpher: "Rogel Alpher produced an embarrassing show of demagoguery. He doesn't know the IDF value of mutual responsibility, of not abandoning soldiers in the field. The three religions all endeavor to bring the dead to a proper burial. Do you think that to want such a dignified burial for our son should be defined as 'mad hubris'?"
Shoken originally answered laconically "indeed" and aroused the anger of the bereaved parents who answered him that "we believe that if Hadar Goldin were Palestinian, Amira Hess and Gidon Levi [ultra left-wing Haaretz journalists] would fight for his right to be brought to burial on the pages of Haaretz.
Shoken later apologized for his "crazy" tweet and said that he had not read the Goldins' question properly.