Ha’aretz Apartheid Clarification: Too Little, Too Late
October 29, 2012 14:22 by Simon Plosker
Ha’aretz: where’s the accountability?
Last week, Gideon Levy, the radical left-wing Ha’aretz commentator, took the results of a poll and promoted the canard that most Israeli Jews would support an apartheid regime in Israel.
We weren’t the only ones to notice that Levy’s analysis of the survey did not measure up to the actual results, instead representing a slander against Israel and Israelis.
Gideon Levy must go.
Even Ha’aretz has recognized that Levy misrepresented the facts, adding the following to the original English online article, which also appears in the Hebrew print edition:
CLARIFICATION: The original headline for this piece, ‘Most Israelis support an apartheid regime in Israel,’ did not accurately reflect the findings of the Dialog poll. The question to which most respondents answered in the negative did not relate to the current situation, but to a hypothetical situation in the future: ‘If Israel annexes territories in Judea and Samaria, should 2.5 million Palestinians be given the right to vote for the Knesset?’
The misleading headline has also been changed to “Survey: Most Israeli Jews wouldn’t give Palestinians vote if West Bank was annexed”.
Hardly a correction or an apology. Perhaps to soften the blow, Ha’aretz published an opinion piece by Yehuda Ben Meir who came to quite different conclusions to Levy, stating that Levy’s article “does an injustice to the State of Israel, the Jewish people and the truth.”
But what of Gideon Levy himself? While acknowledging an error, he appears to be utterly unrepentant, writing a follow up piece in Ha’aretz:
This article is meant to fix a few mistakes. They shouldn’t have happened; we must acknowledge them, apologize for them and fix them. They were not made intentionally, but as a result of neglect due to time pressure. Now is the time to make things right.
Instead of making things right, however, Levy claims that the errors were negligible and goes on to attack those who called him out:
In my analysis of the survey… there was a single sentence that did not accurately represent the poll results and contradicted what I had written in the news piece a short time beforehand.
. . .
The routine excoriation took off. The mirror reflects an unsightly image? Let’s smash it. The messenger stumbles? Let’s slander him, and to hell with everything else described in his article, even discounting the mistake. This is what propagandists always do. One particularly pathetic one has built an entire career out of ridiculously rummaging through negligible errors. Instead of anger being directed toward the findings of the survey – which is what should have caused a scandal – many readers and commentators focused on the unfortunate mistakes that were made.
. . .
They [the right wing] are interested solely in an unfortunate mistake that barely changed anything.
In one breath, Levy states that there were a “few mistakes” and in another, claims that only a single sentence was incorrect. Which is it?
And just who is the propagandist and who has been slandered? Levy is only too happy to promote the canard of Israel as an apartheid state, even going as far as to help some of the most vicious anti-Zionist activists to serve his cause. The only slander that has been committed is Levy’s against the State of Israel.
In most organizations and businesses, a major error that causes immense damage results in those responsible being held responsible and perhaps even heads rolling. But not at Ha’aretz. This time, Gideon Levy has gone too far and must be held accountable. It cannot be business as usual at Ha’aretz. This story was reproduced around the world causing immense damage to Israel’s already fragile image.
Click here to see how this story was reporting in the foreign media
Gideon Levy must go. It is time for Ha’aretz to take the appropriate action and remove him from the paper’s roster of journalists. In addition, the editor of Ha’aretz should be held accountable for allowing such skewed and incorrect reporting to appear with such negligent oversight.
Please register your complaints with Ha’aretz through its online contact form.
Victor
6:10 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Enough is enough…. I have now deleted Ha’aretz from my (free) browser.
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Annette
8:43 pm
Oct 29, 2012
How do I delete Ha’aretz from appearing in my Google news? I can no longer deal with all the sensationlist headlines – it’s like a cross between Al Jazeera and The Sun.
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Suebee
6:28 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Ha’aretz needs to be more careful what they publish. If you love Israel and its people you need to encourage not heap on more condemnation. Especially by a misguided Jewish person or other commentary.
I compare misguided Jews in America to the ones that were in Germany when Hitler was coming into power. Whether you realize it we have the same thing happening in the USA. Wait it out if you like, but Israel is the safest place.
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Clap Hammer
6:35 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Gideon Levy would fit in very well with the misrepresentations and omissions so common in the UK Guardian. I don’t absolve HaAretz at all. They have editors who should have examined with great detail any interpretation of Gideon Levy’s on any subject that he writes about INCLUDING THE WEATHER.
I cancelled my HaAretz subscription two years ago. Sadly, I can’t cancel it again without re-subscribing.
Something that I will not do.
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Tanny
6:45 pm
Oct 29, 2012
And by the way, the Hebrew version of the article, after correction, replaces “Wouldn’t Give Palestinians Vote” with “Supports Apartheid”. It’s still there:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/1.1848141
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Fran
7:07 pm
Oct 29, 2012
I canceled my daily subscription to HaAretz after 3 years, mainly because I could take any more of Gideon Levy. His articles are consistently viciously anti-Israel and not based on fact – not just this article.
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David
7:08 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Horrified
7:54 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Leeway? They slander Israel and Jews to the whole world. Their articles are picked up and distributed to all the world’s Israel haters and used as ammunition. Have you any idea of the damage these self-hating Jews cause? They give cover to vicious anti-Semites. Leeway! My foot!
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Fliss
7:13 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Any citizen of Israel who is found to be working against the State should have their citizenship revoked and told to leave the country never to return. Pretty sure Gideon Levy fits into that category. After all, if he’s so anti Israeli – as he obviously is it’s not like he’s going to miss the country is he? And I doubt the citizens who just want to live in peace will miss him or those of his ilk.
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Marjorie
7:44 pm
Oct 29, 2012
“Working against the state” is not stating opinions critical of the state. Our freedom of expression is precious, and Israel, unlike all of its neighbours, guarantees that freedom to all its people, even to those who don’t like Israel very much. It is what makes Israel a liberal democracy. What is against the law is incitement to violence, conspiracy to undermine a state — not simply stating slanderous opinions and untruths. This of course does not mean that Ha’aretz has to keep Levy as a columnist, but it certainly doesn’t mean he should lose his right to live in Israel, as Fliss suggests.
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Horrified
7:57 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Don’t the lies and slander of people like Levy provoke violence? Such stuff is used to incite violence with the argument “See, even the Jews say this themselves.”
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Yonatan
7:23 pm
Oct 29, 2012
There’s something many people don’t seem to understand. Gideon Levy pretty much represents Ha’aretz editorial policy. This I learned in a bitter exchange of e-mails with an Ha’aretz assistant editor after we cancelled our subscription and I wrote the editor that Gideon levy would do well to write for The Guardian or al Jazeera. (It was the ha’aretz editor that was bitter. They are losing subscribers and are in a financial mess. The don’t have enough subscribers or ads to keep the paper floating, and so a German investor owns about 25% of the paper.
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Yonatan
7:27 pm
Oct 29, 2012
There’s something many people don’t seem to understand. Gideon Levy pretty much represents Ha’aretz editorial policy. This I learned in a bitter exchange of e-mails with an Ha’aretz assistant editor after we cancelled our subscription and I wrote the editor that Gideon levy would do well to write for The Guardian or al Jazeera. (It was the ha’aretz editor that was bitter. They are losing subscribers and don’t have enough ads to keep them floating for long.
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Richard Mather
7:54 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Interestingly, even the anti-Israel Guardian newspaper acknowledged in one of its op-ed pieces that the apartheid claim is nonsense. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/26/israel-arabs-not-apartheid?newsfeed=true.
It’s a shame, though, that most media outlets slavishly copied the Ha’aretz line. Shame on Ha’aretz for denigrating Israel so publicly.
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Angela Wine
8:57 pm
Oct 29, 2012
When I was at school -in a convent- in South Africa, the worst anti-semites were those children with a bit of Jewish blood . But it amazes me, even horrifies me when someone Jewish, blatently makes statements which can and do harm to Jews and the State of Israel, statements which are not even true and he believes this is only a small mistake or doesn’t bother to check out the facts., There is so much misinformation, so many omissions and lies going around about Israel and even about International Law and being passed on without any compunction. and the world pounces on them as truth. If this isn’t antisemitism then I don’t know what is.
Disgusted
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Gábor Fränkl
9:15 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Look, the Israeli Gideon-Vidkun quisling is an unrepentent antisemite. You cannot put it in any other way. he sucked it with his mother’s milk. Even his father was reportedly a willing and enthusiastic Nazi-collaborant in Prague after 1938.
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Dany
10:00 pm
Oct 29, 2012
When will these bigots be thrown out of Israel
or will they leave on their own. This land is not
theirs! Abviously.
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Sandra
10:15 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Having been born and spent most of my life in South Africa, I can say with certainty that the word ‘apartheid’ was used here in total ignorance of its real meaning (which only applied in ‘apartheid South Africa’) and with the intention of denigrating and inspiring hatred against Israel.
I am constantly nauseated by the negativity expressed by Ha’aretz against Israel, and believe that the sooner that paper disappears the better.
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Amo Fuchs
11:37 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Is Haaretz still there?
Not only Gideon Levy shall b removed, also Beny Zyffer.
In an article of March 2002, the month of the bombing of the Park Hottel in Netanya, commenting the Lessing play, “Nathan the Wise”, whe wrote that we, the Jews/Israelis of the 20/21st century deserve to be burned, as the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem says in the play.
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Edivar
11:50 pm
Oct 29, 2012
Also in spanish-speaking media:
http://www.google.cl/search?hl=es&gl=cl&tbm=nws&q=apartheid+israel%C3%ADes&oq=apartheid+israel%C3%ADes&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i400.4875.12180.0.12299.25.3.3.19.22.0.333.830.2-2j1.3.0…0.0…1ac.1.Elc6BcejQ60
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Leonard
12:13 am
Oct 30, 2012
Check out the SAVE a CHILD HEART organization in Holon, Israel where hundreds of children from Gaza and the Palestinian West BANK receive open heart life saving surgery by the best skilled surgeon at the Wofson M idecal Center, all free of charge and Palestianian doctors are taught how to also perform open heart surgery for children in their hospitals. Then try and convince those arrogant Israeli haters that Israel in an aparthied state.
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martin
1:16 am
Oct 30, 2012
Ha Aretz is losing the battle for readership because why would a normal Israeli want to be told only negative things about hyim or her and theircountry? I gave up reading this sheet of hate online a long time ago.
these Jew hatring Jews really are so full of Marxist dogma, they have forgotten what it means to be Jewish. The left in Israel lost lost it’s way a long time ago. Even amny Kibbutzniks will admit that, too.
Ha Aretz shares it’s lifeblood with the BBC, CNN al Jazeera, The Guardian, Observer, LA Times etc. It is bad enough to view the hate from Jews? This is not anacceptable and unforgivable. These Jews should be writing with their friends in Cairo, Beirut, Ramallah etc
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martin
1:18 am
Oct 30, 2012
Have you noticed the 1 disagree on these posts. what a sad demented person. Why don’t you write your opinion and let us understand whta You have to say?
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Yenta Press
1:34 am
Oct 30, 2012
Please don’t con yourself. Levy did not put his article on the front page and did not
create the headline. There is an editor (Aluf Ben) and the publisher (Amos Shoken)
who are the people to blame. The face of this manipulative rug is their face
and the whole thing should go down- not just Levy. Also note that “Israel Hayom” is printed
on Haaretz presses, And the best thing Mr. Sheldon Adelson can do for Israel now,
is to print his paper elsewhere.
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