Haaretz apologized for publishing an ad against military refusals, supposedly due to a technical glitch, saying, "As the newspaper was going to press, a glitch occurred in the ad approval process and it should not have been published as is."
The original ad showed a section of video that went viral, in which an infantry fighter requests assistance from the Air Force, but does not receive it because the pilot opposes the judicial reform. The leftists were outraged and the video clip was also condemned by Defense Minister Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
Dotan Razili, a regular reader of Haaretz, attacked publisher Amos Shoken claiming that “even Haaretz has crossed a line and money is not everything in life.”
Shoken admitted that he approved the ad, but added that it included a QR code link to the video in question. "Unfortunately, the advertiser cheated us," he wrote on his Twitter account, "in order to get approval for publication, he submitted an ad without the link to the false video, but after approval, he asked to replace the ad, and those responsible did not notice the change."
Not all readers who objected to the advertisement itself were satisfied by this excuse and one, named Uri Peled Nakash, responded to Shoken saying: "I think that this ad is inappropriate, even without the link to the video clip."
Torat Lehima reacted sarcastically to Shoken's apology this morning: "We are amazed at Mr. Shoken. Only a few days ago he published a large ad supporting the Chief of Staff against the government. We actually thought that Shoken and his buddies had decided to be patriotic, to strengthen and support the IDF, and that they would be happy to condemn the refusals that seriously harm the IDF. It turns out that Haaretz supports the Chief of Staff only in his position as the 'defender of democracy,' and not as the defender of Israel's security and the strength of the IDF. Now we see that Haaretz’s fake liberalism stops as soon as it comes to an ad supporting the IDF against those who refuse to follow orders and inevitably harm Israel's security."