The appointment that Oren didn't like was that of a religious officer, Maj.-Gen. Eliezer Stern, to the post of the IDF’s personnel branch.



Yaalon reported the incident to the paper’s editor, David Landau, and to a former editor, Hanoch Marmari. Neither of them took action against the columnist.



The left-wing columnist, Amir Oren, had a vendetta against Stern, who filed a complaint against Oren with the Press Council in 2002. When Yaalon decided to appoint Stern to head the personnel department in 2004, Oren sent a message to the office of the Chief of Staff, saying that if Stern did not withdraw his complaint by midnight of that day, he would "publish everything he knows about the IDF, and that the Chief of Staff would suffer greatly."



Yaalon’s staff suggested that Stern discuss the complaint with Yaalon, but Stern, after consulting IDF Prosecution attorneys, said he had no obligation to do so, and refused to withdraw his complaint.



In his complaint, Stern accused Oren of making threats regarding his upcoming appointments. Then serving as the IDF’s Chief Education Officer, Stern said he was warned by Oren not to appoint certain officers to positions such as assistant education officer and political commentator for Army Radio.



Oren reportedly told Stern, “Elazar, you know that I know you and appreciate you, but if you agree [to appoint Avi] Benayahu to Army Radio, I will transfer you to the 'other side'..."



“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” said Stern in his complaint.



Both Yaalon and Stern asserted that Oren made good on his threats, writing about them in his columns with intense hostility. As one of Yaalon’s associates said, “He would slaughter him every week in Haaretz."



Haaretz editor David Landau responded to the accusations, which were originally published in Maariv, a competing newspaper. “If the remarks of that journalist were actually made," Landau said, "they are inappropriate. I assume they were made as a type of joke. I don’t think an intelligent person would assume that a threat like this would have been uttered seriously. I am totally sure that this issue between the Chief of Staff and the journalist had no ramifications or influence on the work of the journalist and on what was published in our newspaper.”



The previous editor of Haaretz, Hanoch Marmari, refused to comment.