Israel's leading journalists are totally confused. They simply do not understand this business about the canning of CNN's Peter Arnett. After all, all that Arnett did was appear on TV and condemn his own country and openly, publicly support the enemy in time of war. That is all!
You see, Israeli journalists find this so troubling because, for decades, the main function of Israeli journalists has been to denounce their own country and openly support the enemy in time of war. Their mantra is effectively: "The Enemy of Our Country, Right or Wrong!" Their role model has long been Lord Haw-Haw of England during the 1940s, who broadcast pro-German propaganda into Britain from Nazi Germany. They see their mission in life as serving as public relations officers for the PLO and the rest of the Arab world, and now they are nearly united in identifying with the heroic campaign of Saddam's people to resist the American "occupiers". For so many years they have been denouncing Israeli "occupation", the term easily rolls off their forked tongues, in Freudian manner, even when describing the US campaign against Iraq.
The journalists of Haaretz are best represented by Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, people who dream of their country being dismembered and replaced by a Palestinian state from the sea to the river. Haaretz is as pluralistic as Pravda was when Stalin was alive. Professor Arnon Soffer has suggested it change its name to al-Ard (Arabic for ?the land?, ?Haaretz? in Hebrew). For every 150 or so pieces by far Leftist anti-Zionists, it runs one symbolic balancing piece from the Right, usually by Moshe Arens.
In a recent weekend Haaretz magazine, ?the paper for thinking Israelis? follows the regular weekly column by Gideon Levy - concerning an Arab family that lost a daughter when the PLO opened a firefight and Israeli troops shot back at them - with some unique copy. Amira Hass, the Tokyo Rose (or Ramallah Rose) of the Middle East, runs a piece devoted to helping us understand the human interest side of the suicide bombers, with statements from interviews with several suicide bombers who failed to blow up buses full of Jewish children for one reason or another. After all, so much of the press make such people out to be monsters that Comrade Amira believes a bit of balance is in order. Suicide bombers are just poor misunderstood idealists.
This is followed by a piece by Aviv Lavie, who may be recalled for his piece in Haaretz denouncing those Israelis who referred to a Palestinian terrorist woman, who murdered a 15-year-old Jewish child, as a ?lass? or a ?girl?, instead of as a ?woman?. He has a long piece devoted to the scoop that, while Israel does not do well in the Olympics or in international sports and music competitions, it is leading the field in having its leftists receive honors and ?alternative? peace prizes from the various anti-Semitic, far Leftist, pro-terror "human rights" activist organizations around the world. Israeli far-Left, pro-enemy organizations have reaped countless such international awards. Uri Avnery, the Father of Israeli Anti-Zionism, recently got an ?Alternative Nobel Prize?; a prize, no doubt, that will also go to Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, soon. Ruchama Merton, who is so anti-Israel that her articles are featured on the web sites of Nazi organizations and Holocaust deniers, got the ?Jonathan Mann? prize. She represents an organization named Physicians for Human Rights. Two years ago, Professor Gerald Steinberg from Bar-Ilan University organized a petition signed by 200 people declaring that the Physicians for Human Rights is an anti-Semitic organization. Jeff Halper, who specializes in preventing the IDF from destroying the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers and mass murderers, who is employed as an ?anthropologist? by Ben-Gurion University, is another great prize-winning hero of Lavie?s, as is convicted and imprisoned communist nuclear spy and traitor Mordecai Vannunu.
Yediot Aharonot - the country's main newspaper - is nearly as monochromatic (pink). Second-place Maariv sometimes has a semblance of pluralism, although its editors are leftist, as are most of its main writers. As an example, Maariv cannot even run a front page news story about the war in Iraq without inserting its own leftist bias. In the April 4th edition, the front page was about the victories of the good people from the US and UK over Saddam, with stories about how the US is asking Israel for help in handling Islamist suicide bombers there. And in the middle of the front page, the ace reporter for Maariv, Ben Kaspit, goes into a whole diatribe about how Israel could just as easily give the US lessons about unnecessary wars, seeing how Ariel Sharon is a master at starting such unnecessary wars (in Lebanon) for absolutely no good reason at all (other than the fact that Lebanon was being used to mass murder Jews by the PLO). And so, Israel can teach those provincial Americans about how they should not start unnecessary wars of aggression, either. All this, in a front page news story in Maariv.
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Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa and is author of The Scout (available from Gefen Publishing House: http://161.58.167.199/shop/indi_scout.htm).
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.
You see, Israeli journalists find this so troubling because, for decades, the main function of Israeli journalists has been to denounce their own country and openly support the enemy in time of war. Their mantra is effectively: "The Enemy of Our Country, Right or Wrong!" Their role model has long been Lord Haw-Haw of England during the 1940s, who broadcast pro-German propaganda into Britain from Nazi Germany. They see their mission in life as serving as public relations officers for the PLO and the rest of the Arab world, and now they are nearly united in identifying with the heroic campaign of Saddam's people to resist the American "occupiers". For so many years they have been denouncing Israeli "occupation", the term easily rolls off their forked tongues, in Freudian manner, even when describing the US campaign against Iraq.
The journalists of Haaretz are best represented by Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, people who dream of their country being dismembered and replaced by a Palestinian state from the sea to the river. Haaretz is as pluralistic as Pravda was when Stalin was alive. Professor Arnon Soffer has suggested it change its name to al-Ard (Arabic for ?the land?, ?Haaretz? in Hebrew). For every 150 or so pieces by far Leftist anti-Zionists, it runs one symbolic balancing piece from the Right, usually by Moshe Arens.
In a recent weekend Haaretz magazine, ?the paper for thinking Israelis? follows the regular weekly column by Gideon Levy - concerning an Arab family that lost a daughter when the PLO opened a firefight and Israeli troops shot back at them - with some unique copy. Amira Hass, the Tokyo Rose (or Ramallah Rose) of the Middle East, runs a piece devoted to helping us understand the human interest side of the suicide bombers, with statements from interviews with several suicide bombers who failed to blow up buses full of Jewish children for one reason or another. After all, so much of the press make such people out to be monsters that Comrade Amira believes a bit of balance is in order. Suicide bombers are just poor misunderstood idealists.
This is followed by a piece by Aviv Lavie, who may be recalled for his piece in Haaretz denouncing those Israelis who referred to a Palestinian terrorist woman, who murdered a 15-year-old Jewish child, as a ?lass? or a ?girl?, instead of as a ?woman?. He has a long piece devoted to the scoop that, while Israel does not do well in the Olympics or in international sports and music competitions, it is leading the field in having its leftists receive honors and ?alternative? peace prizes from the various anti-Semitic, far Leftist, pro-terror "human rights" activist organizations around the world. Israeli far-Left, pro-enemy organizations have reaped countless such international awards. Uri Avnery, the Father of Israeli Anti-Zionism, recently got an ?Alternative Nobel Prize?; a prize, no doubt, that will also go to Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, soon. Ruchama Merton, who is so anti-Israel that her articles are featured on the web sites of Nazi organizations and Holocaust deniers, got the ?Jonathan Mann? prize. She represents an organization named Physicians for Human Rights. Two years ago, Professor Gerald Steinberg from Bar-Ilan University organized a petition signed by 200 people declaring that the Physicians for Human Rights is an anti-Semitic organization. Jeff Halper, who specializes in preventing the IDF from destroying the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers and mass murderers, who is employed as an ?anthropologist? by Ben-Gurion University, is another great prize-winning hero of Lavie?s, as is convicted and imprisoned communist nuclear spy and traitor Mordecai Vannunu.
Yediot Aharonot - the country's main newspaper - is nearly as monochromatic (pink). Second-place Maariv sometimes has a semblance of pluralism, although its editors are leftist, as are most of its main writers. As an example, Maariv cannot even run a front page news story about the war in Iraq without inserting its own leftist bias. In the April 4th edition, the front page was about the victories of the good people from the US and UK over Saddam, with stories about how the US is asking Israel for help in handling Islamist suicide bombers there. And in the middle of the front page, the ace reporter for Maariv, Ben Kaspit, goes into a whole diatribe about how Israel could just as easily give the US lessons about unnecessary wars, seeing how Ariel Sharon is a master at starting such unnecessary wars (in Lebanon) for absolutely no good reason at all (other than the fact that Lebanon was being used to mass murder Jews by the PLO). And so, Israel can teach those provincial Americans about how they should not start unnecessary wars of aggression, either. All this, in a front page news story in Maariv.
--------------------------------------------------------
Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa and is author of The Scout (available from Gefen Publishing House: http://161.58.167.199/shop/indi_scout.htm).
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.