"Sooner or later, nearly everyone on Haaretz gets called a Nazi."
March 1, 2011 10:23 AM   Subscribe

The Dissenters. New Yorker profile by editor David Remnick: "Ha'aretz prides itself on being the conscience of Israel. Does it have a future?" (Via)
posted by zarq (48 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
When I saw 'Isreal' on the front page of MetaFilter, I rolled my eyes. However, this article is really, really good. Read through it before going on a pro/anti-Israeli derail.
posted by schmod at 10:47 AM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thank you, schmod. Much appreciated. :)
posted by zarq at 10:50 AM on March 1, 2011


An interesting piece. As the Egypt events were unfolding and the position of Israel was of backing the old regime, it was nice to came across the quoted Ha'aretz editorial by Anshel Pfeffer "Why should Israel be the only Democracy in the Middle East?".
posted by HLD at 11:00 AM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


I sure hope so. It's great that they've been able to provide a broader range of ideology in democratic discourse. For my own selfish reason, Ha'aretz also provides us with a view from inside Israel that's free of the knee-jerk political baggage we often get from North American news outlets on both the left and right.
posted by Hoopo at 11:02 AM on March 1, 2011


Golda Meir once said that the only government that Haaretz ever supported was the British Mandate, before the birth of the state.

Sorry Golda, but I don't think any newspaper should "support" any government, period. Being "insistently oppositional" is kind of their job.
posted by theodolite at 11:06 AM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thanks so much for this. It was originally behind a pay wall.

There are quite a few left wing Israelis here in Israel who will not buy Ha'aretz simply because of Gideon Levy. He is simply that divisive.

To give you an idea, have a look at this video, unfortunately is not translated but nevertheless telling, showing a very heated exchange between Levy and fellow Ha'aretz columnist Avi Shavit. Levy is in the orange.

Here is the open letter to Levy written by A.B. Yehoshua, one of Israel's most beloved writers and a peace activist.
posted by beisny at 11:19 AM on March 1, 2011


shows only disdain for the Orthodox

Yeah, well, if I was an Israeli I'd be contemptous of the segment of the population that did nothing to establish the state and many of whose more right-wing members dodge millitary service while deriding the very same Israelis who provde security as not adequately religious.
posted by rodgerd at 11:24 AM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


I do wonder what will happen when (not if) the Palestinians adopt the tactics of the Egyptians to protest the occupation. It's something they are going to have to face in months, not years, I'd wager.
posted by empath at 12:01 PM on March 1, 2011


empath : "I do wonder what will happen when (not if) the Palestinians adopt the tactics of the Egyptians to protest the occupation. It's something they are going to have to face in months, not years, I'd wager."

There's an interesting essay on the (left wing) Tikkun Olam blog about that. Arab Democratic Revolution: Bringing it all back home to Palestine.
posted by zarq at 12:06 PM on March 1, 2011


*mailed to liberal but for some reason staunchly Zionist family members*

thanks, this is awesome. I want to be Amira Hass when I grow up :)
posted by By The Grace of God at 12:12 PM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


beisny, you're very welcome. I was amazed to find it was suddenly offered for free this morning. :)
posted by zarq at 12:15 PM on March 1, 2011


I enjoyed the article when it appeared in my New Yorker. I thought it a fine piece. I do go to that site online from time to time and find they always are worth reading.

It might though be pointed out that Israel has taken a distinct turn to the Right, pushed there by years and years of non-stop suicide and rocket attacks. No matter how you feel about what the present situation is, clearly there are many in israel who have settled in for a no-peace long term

To give but one example: a well-known Israeli novelist, long-time peace activist, lost his son when the had to go into action in the recent Lebanon (Hezbollah) war and was killed. I am not sure what his views are now but this is the sort of thing that does turn folks.

No matter what position one takes vis a vis Israel, the Palestinians, etc., it is always important to have a broad spectrum of views...otherwise you have a state echo chamber, the sort of thing
there is in North Korea or Iran.

ps: many Israelis do hope for democracy to come to their neighbors. They believe that regimes focus upon Israel as the source of their problems in order to take the minds off their own internal problems.
posted by Postroad at 12:17 PM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Any article highlighting the work of Amira Hass is fine by me.
Receiving the 2009 Reporters Without Borders - Press Freedom Prize she said:
Israeli readers still find it hard to accept a version of the events different from the official one..
posted by adamvasco at 12:31 PM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


There's an interesting essay on the (left wing) Tikkun Olam blog about that.

There was an article in Al Jazeera the other day that suggested protests against the PA as being an illegitimate government imposed by an occupying power, and to demand rights as Israelis unless Israel leaves the occupied territories.
posted by empath at 12:36 PM on March 1, 2011



To give but one example: a well-known Israeli novelist, long-time peace activist, lost his son when the had to go into action in the recent Lebanon (Hezbollah) war and was killed. I am not sure what his views are now but this is the sort of thing that does turn folks.


He's still resolutely pro peace and negotiation, god bless him. David Grossman is one of my heroes.
posted by lalochezia at 1:09 PM on March 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


empath : " There was an article in Al Jazeera the other day that suggested protests against the PA as being an illegitimate government imposed by an occupying power, and to demand rights as Israelis unless Israel leaves the occupied territories."

I'd absolutely love to see them try something like that. Have never been convinced the PA has the best interests of its people at heart.
posted by zarq at 1:10 PM on March 1, 2011


Dear Empath--
"...unless Israel leaves the occupied territories"?
When does a nation, invaded, go to war, take land, and hand it back without first having a signed agreement, and understanding, in hand?
Israel moved out of Gaza...and that got rockets that much closer to Israelis...and yes, they were fired nearly every day.
posted by Postroad at 2:46 PM on March 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Not going to get into an I/P debate.
posted by empath at 2:46 PM on March 1, 2011 [7 favorites]


Not going to get into an I/P debate.

I agree, though my fingers are twitching.
Just...need...to...correct...common...misconception...ARGH!
posted by knapah at 4:20 PM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


In my view that traditional 'spoils of a defensive war' argument works for justifying retention of Golan a lot better than Gaza and the West Bank. (Not looking for an I/P debate either.)

Very interesting FPP—Ha'Aretz has always seemed markedly different than other Israeli print news orgs, but I had never taken the time to learn more about it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:24 PM on March 1, 2011


When does a nation, invaded, go to war, take land, and hand it back without first having a signed agreement, and understanding, in hand?

Which is why the Iraelis are still keeping the 30 mile buffer zone in South Lebanon right?
posted by humanfont at 4:27 PM on March 1, 2011


Hey guys, can we not have same who's right and who's wrong argument we've had 10,000 times before? The history is the same, nothing has changed, and the situation is shitty for both sides.

Something has changed in the region, a new tactic that threatens to overturn the entire political order of the middle east and north africa. Israel is not going to be immune to it. The Gaza blockade will come down from the Egyptian side soon enough, and Muslim Brotherhood members and Egyptian activists are surely going to cross the border and train a desperate and receptive populace how to resist an occupation (or a blockade) in the same way that they overthrew a dictator.

The interesting discussion to be had now is how does Israel prepare for it, and whether Hamas and Fatah will actually adopt those tactics or have them turned against them as well.
posted by empath at 4:54 PM on March 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Something has changed in the region, a new tactic that threatens to overturn the entire political order of the middle east and north africa. Israel is not going to be immune to it. The Gaza blockade will come down from the Egyptian side soon enough, and Muslim Brotherhood members and Egyptian activists are surely going to cross the border and train a desperate and receptive populace how to resist an occupation (or a blockade) in the same way that they overthrew a dictator.

I can only hope that the forthcoming regional environment does not enable Hamas, which, besides being a violent terrorist organization, is a very repressive government, to arm itself with impunity.
posted by knoyers at 5:06 PM on March 1, 2011


"[Shmuel] Rosner, who is decidedly more conservative than his ex-colleagues, rails against Haaretz, but, like so many former staffers and current rivals, he concedes that it is still the most authoritative paper in the country. Nahum Barnea, the popular columnist at Yedioth, spent a long time describing to me how “out of touch” Haaretz was with public opinion, but then admitted that he begins his morning with it, not with his own paper."

I very much like the idea that Ha'aretz, by virtue of its willingness to seek out discomfiting facts, and stick to them in the face of powerful political/cultural pressures (that far exceed those that routinely cause US media outlets to issue mournful retractions, btw), has made itself unpopular but essential, not least to its detractors. The fact that such bristling integrity appears to require the unaccountably devoted patronage of a wealthy mercantile dynasty to survive is less appealing, but not a great surprise.
posted by $0up at 6:14 PM on March 1, 2011


Oh, and unmuted video ads on autoplay -- it appears to require those too :/
posted by $0up at 6:28 PM on March 1, 2011


Empath wrote: Muslim Brotherhood members and Egyptian activists are surely going to cross the border and train a desperate and receptive populace how to resist an occupation (or a blockade) in the same way that they overthrew a dictator.

Here's what happens when your "Muslim Brotherhood members and Egyptian activists" cross the border into Gaza. They gather everybody up and they all sit down in a public square, and announce that they won't leave until Israel does whatever. Israel, which is a few miles away on the other side of the Israel/Gaza border, ignores them. Eventually Hamas decides that the protesters are blocking traffic and it tells them to move on.

The revolts in Arab countries show that even autocratic governments can crumble when their illegitimacy is exposed by a popular uprising. The Egyptian and Tunisian revolts succeeded - so far - because their armies weren't willing to fire on their own people. The Libyan one is somewhat up in the air (because Gaddafi resorted to foreign mercenaries) but I think it's clear that nobody outside Libya will accept him as a legitimate leader.

The Arab revolt isn't relevant to Gaza or the West Bank because Israel does not pretend to be the legitimate government in those areas. Israel knows the Palestinians mostly hate it and everybody knows that Israel knows. It isn't worried about demonstrations and protests because Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) already have regular demonstrations against Israel, generally with the wholehearted support of their governments. If Palestinians aren't satisfied with peaceful protest they join a militia - in the case of Palestinians in Gaza, they are effectively joining the Hamas militia. If Israel thought the Moslem Brotherhood would encourage peaceful protests in Gaza it would probably pay their busfare.

On the other hand, the governments of Gaza and the West Bank are probably very worried. Elections have been put off in each area, yet again, because neither government has popular support. They already find it necessary to quash demonstrations against them. A sufficiently-large popular uprising in the West Bank would probably lead to the fall of yet another Palestinian Authority cabinet and it might even lead to a genuinely popular government. But a popular uprising in Gaza would probably lead to a massacre by Hamas because that's how they seized control of Gaza in the first place.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:03 PM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


that's how they seized control of Gaza in the first place.

I thought it was by winning the 2006 elections, and then defeating Dahlan's CIA-backed coup attempt.
posted by moorooka at 12:28 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


Just...need...to...correct...common...misconception...ARGH!

yeah, it's hard to resist. But I prefer to just link to the Palestine Papers.
posted by moorooka at 12:46 AM on March 2, 2011


Moorooka wrote: I thought it was by winning the 2006 elections, and then defeating Dahlan's CIA-backed coup attempt.

A party that wins a majority doesn't become the government in its own right. Hamas as a militia rules Gaza. I'm sure that it has the support of many, conceivably all the Hamas representatives that were elected in 2006, but the reason Hamas as a militia rules the Gaza strip is because it seized it from the Palestinian Authority and massacred anyone who stood in its way. As for Hamas' claim that it acted to forestall a coup - well, that excuse is a bit thin after four years of one-party rule with no elections in sight.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:59 AM on March 2, 2011


All I'm saying is that Fatah refused to participate in a Hamas-led government, and responded to the election results by attempting to seize power by force in a CIA-backed coup, and that is how Hamas came to power, whether or not it is an "excuse" for anything that happened since.
posted by moorooka at 1:38 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


My Internet-enhanced ADHD doesn't usually let me read a whole article as long as this one, but I couldn't stop. Thanks, zarq.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 3:37 AM on March 2, 2011


They gather everybody up and they all sit down in a public square, and announce that they won't leave until Israel does whatever.

I imagine they'd be massing at the border, or doing something else that Israel can't really ignore.
posted by empath at 5:45 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


or doing something else that Israel can't really ignore.

like maybe receiving a flotilla's worth of humanitarian aid?
posted by moorooka at 6:09 AM on March 2, 2011


Yeah, more of that sort of thing. Or over the Egypt border.
posted by empath at 6:23 AM on March 2, 2011


The main problem is the Palestinian leadership is all running on the same tired, '70s era revolutionary authoritarian bullshit that swept Ghaddafi, Mubarak and the Ayatollas into power. Once they're swept away again for modern, inclusive democratic institutions, they'll change both what they're asking for, and how they're asking for it, and Israel will be far more receptive, or they'll face some real backlash from western and regional powers. Currently, with violent revolution and armed resistance at the core of the Palestinian postion, Israel just brushes off the criticism - even the broughaha with Turkey was mostly for show: They've got Kurds to quash, they get it.

Once the tactics change from violence to peaceful demonstration, and the demands change from democide of the Jewish nation to inclusion in an Israeli state, they'll get a hell of a lot farther than they have up to now.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:27 AM on March 2, 2011


Currently, with violent revolution and armed resistance at the core of the Palestinian postion...

That's just about the opposite of the truth, but why take my word for it when you can read for yourself the more than 1,600 leaked internal documents from a decade of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
posted by moorooka at 6:35 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


Once the tactics change from violence to peaceful demonstration, and the demands change from democide of the Jewish nation to inclusion in an Israeli state

There's 0 chance that is going to happen without a revolution in Israel itself.
posted by empath at 6:45 AM on March 2, 2011


That's just about the opposite of the truth...

The rockets and suicide bombers are just colorful fireworks shows, and the calls for the destruction of the Jewish state just cheery campfire songs, all to demonstrate loving brotherhood? They're not pointless provocations that allows the worst reactionaries in Israel to have their way and laugh in the face of Palestinian negotiators, and keep the old, hoary violent radical revolutionaries propped up and swimming in misappropriated money? Well, I learned something new...
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:00 AM on March 2, 2011


If you haven't seen Children of Gaza, it's worth watching.
posted by empath at 7:13 AM on March 2, 2011


Well, I learned something new...

Not yet, but there's still hope. How about you actually follow the link that I provided.
posted by moorooka at 7:14 AM on March 2, 2011


previously
posted by moorooka at 7:24 AM on March 2, 2011


The rockets and suicide bombers are just colorful fireworks shows...

On the topic of rockets... I'm just going to quote myself from November 5, 2009, when I was again trying to resist contributing to a pointless back and forth in an Israel/Palestine thread.

"Sigh. Let's consider the recent invasion of Gaza.
Take a look at this chart.

The rocket attacks basically stopped during the quasi-ceasefire, then started up again after Israeli troops attacked and killed 6 Palestinians inside Gaza. If the Israelis were serious about peace and stopped expanding into Palestinian territory [continued settlement building], there would be a significant chance of a lasting solution.
"

So suggesting that the only reason there is still an issue is because of rockets and suicide bombs is a bit dubious. Ironically, Operation Cast Lead reduced Hamas' capacity to prevent future rocket attacks by other groups (such as those linked with lovely moderate Fatah), and that's Israeli military analysis.

I'd love to see the Palestinian people push out their corrupt leaders, but as pointed out above, the West and Israel haven't got a great history of supporting the democratic will of the Palestinian people.

To drag myself back to the topic, I'm glad Haaretz exists mainly because I can point it out to some of more ardent anti-Zionist friends as a reminder that not all Israelis are Avigdor Lieberman. Anshel Pfeffer's article was great in that regard. Oh, and as an idea of how Haaretz covered the attack on Gaza, here is a good article from Haaretz about how Israel began planning Operation Cast Lead, 6 months earlier, while they were starting negotiations for a ceasefire with Hamas.
posted by knapah at 8:55 AM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


Mooroopka, I think we've all the link. What do you believe it demonstrates? That the Israelis and Palestinians were discussing a peace settlement?
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:21 PM on March 2, 2011


Joe, I believe that should be obvious. "violent revolution" and "armed resistance" is not "at the core of the Palestinian position", and has not been for some time. "Collaboration" is closer to the mark.
posted by moorooka at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


moorooka: "Joe, I believe that should be obvious. "violent revolution" and "armed resistance" is not "at the core of the Palestinian position", and has not been for some time. "Collaboration" is closer to the mark."

It's not obvious. The rockets and mortars keep coming.

I've read a bit of the Palestinian papers. I'm still sifting through them when I can.

There is evidence that the Palestinian negotiators were offering large concessions to Israel. Since the PA negotiators were burned in effigy in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza and accused by Hamas of attempting to "liquidate the Palestinian cause" (and in truth such concessions seems quite far from what Hamas itself has stated would be acceptable,) it stands to reason that acceptance by the Palestinian people of any such agreement would have been rejected.

So, was the PA was negotiating in good faith? Hard to say. If they came to an agreement with Israel that Hamas and the Palestinians would not have accepted, nothing would have been accomplished.

All of this happened, by the way, as Erekat was assuring the US and Israel that the Palestinians had learned from past negotiations and "spoke with one voice." This was clearly not the case.

There is no question that the government of Israel distrusts the Palestinians, no longer seems to care much about making concessions to them and continues to aggressively enable illegal settlement building.

But let's be perfectly honest about it: neither side was acting in good faith. They're going through the motions to keep their allies happy.
posted by zarq at 2:40 PM on March 2, 2011


Also, just to be clear... there's also a lot of evidence that Israel was making some pretty harsh demands in exchange for peace, and often refusing to give an inch when concessions were offered. Land annexation. Settlements. Revised maps. The lack of good faith certainly isn't one-sided.

Which brings into question just what role the US has played in the whole peace process, anyway? Bringing the two parties to a negotiating table isn't enough. For an agreement to be reached, Israel is most likely gonna have to concede something. That seems to be an inevitable reality, yes? I'm not done reading the docs, and of course they won't give a full overview anyway. But I haven't seen any evidence here of an effort by the US to push them hard. Isn't that their role as peace midwives?
posted by zarq at 2:55 PM on March 2, 2011


But let's be perfectly honest about it: neither side was acting in good faith. They're going through the motions to keep their allies happy.

It seems to me that Hamas, Fatah and Israel are all in danger of being overtaken by events. Surely the youth movement is going to sweep out the old failed revolutionaries on all sides.

I can't imagine that the youth of Israel isn't stirred as much by the example of the Egyptians as the youth in Palestine.

From a young Gazan boy in Children of Gaza:
"We fixed the boat [the the Israeli's destroyed], thank God, it became as it was before God willing it will start working again soon and we can live off of its produce. As for the Israelis, they will never leave us be. In war, in the sea, they will never leave us. On land, they don't leave us. Wherever we go, they don't leave us. They don't wan the people of Gaza to live in peace.

If I meet an Israeli child, I won't say anything, he has nothing to do with us. It is his father and family who are our enemies, he is not our enemy. When this child grows up and I grow up and we are both men, I will ask him what his father and family have against Gaza. Why do they attack Gaza? Did we do anything to them? Did we hurt them? Did we kill them? Why do they do these things to us?"
The youth on both sides will end this, I think.
posted by empath at 3:09 PM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's not obvious. The rockets and mortars keep coming.

Clearly, the rockets aren't coming from the areas that the PA controls. What "violence" the PA does use has been directed at Hamas and at Palestinian dissidents in the West Bank, with Israeli and American backing. That is, the "core" of the Palestinian position at present is to use force against those who do actually advocate "armed resistance".
In 2009, Palestinian and Israeli forces took part in 1,297 coordinated activities, many of them against militant Palestinian groups, a 72 percent increase over the previous year. Together they have largely disbanded the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a principal Fatah militia; attacked Islamic Jihad cells; and all but eliminated Hamas’s social institutions, financial arrangements, and military activities in the West Bank.

According to the latest annual report of the Shin Bet, Israel’s FBI, “continuous [counterterrorist] activity conducted by Israel and the Palestinian security apparatuses” reduced Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to their lowest numbers since 2000. Today’s level of cooperation, Herzog said, “is better than before the second intifada even—it’s excellent.” Mouna Mansour, a Hamas legislator in the Palestinian Parliament and widow of an assassinated senior leader of the movement, told me, “The PA has succeeded more than the Israelis in crushing Hamas in the West Bank.”

At the center of the Palestinian government’s security reforms are several “special battalions” of the National Security Forces (NSF), an eight-thousand-member gendarmerie that makes up the largest unit of the 25,000-strong Palestinian armed forces in the West Bank. The officer in charge of the vetting, training, equipping, and strategic planning of these special battalions is Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, the United States security coordinator (USSC) for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

-Our Man in Palestine
So, was the PA was negotiating in good faith? Hard to say. If they came to an agreement with Israel that Hamas and the Palestinians would not have accepted, nothing would have been accomplished.

Well, it seems clear that Abbas was planning to give as much attention to what "Hamas and the Palestinians" were going to accept as Mubarak was going to give to the Egyptian people before they kicked him out. The PA is building a police state, complete with in the West Bank under Western and Israeli tutelage.
The security apparati being created, in tandem with a second-generation of monopolies and concentrations of economic power, have little to no domestic transparency or accountability. Effectively, final control rests with Israel, the CIA and other external intelligence services. Western diplomats and officials have described the relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian security bodies responsible for most of the torture of Hamas supporters as being "so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians' work". In the wake of the Hamas 2006 election victory, funding for these security services increased, and continued to be off-balance sheet: it was supplied by western donors and their regional allies, covertly.
...
Across the board, donors -- including the EU and the UN and of course the US -- are financing and implementing the construction of the infrastructural matrix for the security sector -- including prisons (the EU is providing the bulk of funding for 52 prisons -- "more prisons than schools" a security analyst told me during a recent visit to the West Bank), new security facilities and camps in 8 Palestinian cities (each intelligence agency has its own detention center in each town), an academy and a host of training colleges, security force barracks and other facilities.* The principal target for this security infrastructure has been Hamas. Campaigns ostensibly to re-establish public order have provided the cover to clamp down predominantly on Hamas: Palestinian human rights groups have documented over 10,000 supporters of Hamas being arrested by the PA security forces since 2007. The current police/security-to-population ratio in Palestine -- 1:80 -- is not only one of the highest in the world, but is also financially unsustainable.
Abbas and the PA have a vision of a two-state settlement where they plan to rule a truncated Bantustan like the typical Arab autocrat, funded and trained by Israelis and the West. The "negotiation" is over just how truncated this autocratic Bantustan is going to be, and how much (if any) control it will have over its water supplies, airspace, and foreign relations and trade. What is clear from the leaked records is that the PA has long given up on basing their demands on the 1967 borders and the right of return, and are prepared to accept much less than they are entitled to under international law.

there's also a lot of evidence that Israel was making some pretty harsh demands in exchange for peace, and often refusing to give an inch when concessions were offered. Land annexation. Settlements. Revised maps.

Why would they give an inch when they have all the power, everything they want, and nothing to gain? America gives them billions each year and unlimited diplomatic cover to do exactly what they're doing. In the Palestinian Authority they have a native police force, vetted, trained and equipped by the United States, that does their dirty work for them, arrests and tortures those who would resist the occupation by force, and whose idea of "resistance" is the odd UN resolution against settlement building that America vetoes and the world ignores. It's a win-win situation all round.

But I haven't seen any evidence here of an effort by the US to push them hard. Isn't that their role as peace midwives?

Where have you been for the last... ever?
posted by moorooka at 3:40 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


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