Ha’aretz Creates Non-Existent Apartheid State
October 23, 2012 17:02 by Simon Plosker
Gideon Levy
Ha’aretz is a major source of critical and anti-Israel stories for the international media. In the latest example, Ha’aretz’s radical left-wing commentator Gideon Levy has deliberately fed the international media a skewed and biased reading of a poll that claims “Most Israeli Jews would support apartheid regime in Israel“.
Gideon Levy regularly demonizes the Jewish state to foreign audiences and in his own newspaper columns. He regularly goes beyond legitimate criticism of Israel, crossing red lines and allying himself with those who refer to Israel as a racist “apartheid state”, promote boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and wish to see the very destruction of Israel.
On the basis that Levy promotes the canard of Israeli “apartheid”, he is the last journalist who could give an objective analysis of this polls results.
His article opens with the following premise:
Most of the Jewish public in Israel supports the establishment of an apartheid regime in Israel if it formally annexes the West Bank.
But let’s take a look at the findings:
Gideon Levy’s entire premise is based on a hypothetical situation where Israel annexes the West Bank. However, perhaps the real story here is that a plurality of the Israeli public does not favor annexing West Bank settlements let alone the West Bank in its entirety.
This makes the question of voting rights for Palestinians in an annexed West Bank entirely moot. That such a large majority of the Israeli public would deny such a right to Palestinians is unsurprising given that this would effectively lead to the end of Israel as a Jewish state if it allowed Palestinians to vote as equal citizens or the end of Israel as a democratic state if it denied Palestinians those rights.
Which is exactly why the Israeli public does not support such a policy, precisely because the majority of Israelis do not want to be associated with apartheid.
Other statistics are casually tossed in by Levy to support his view of Israel as an apartheid state:
A sweeping 74 percent majority is in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. A quarter – 24 percent – believe separate roads are “a good situation” and 50 percent believe they are “a necessary situation.”
What Levy fails to clarify is that this form of separation is not done on a racial basis but solely on citizenship. Israeli Arabs have as much right as Israeli Jews to travel on any roads they so wish. Any separation on the West Bank road system (and there are plenty of shared roads) is solely due to security and has nothing whatsoever to do with claims of apartheid.
Levy chooses to highlight significant minority opinions where it suits him. For example:
This article is continued on Page 2
C.R.
12:55 am
Oct 24, 2012
These at Ha’aretz and Gideon Levy–are self hating, God hating, anti-Semitic, Marxist Jews–the kind of evil who voted for and still supports the Marxist anti-Semite Barack Obama! These Jews are guilty of sedition and treason and should be expelled from Israel.
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Hello
1:24 am
Oct 24, 2012
Well, printing this report here is only half the battle. What Honest Reporting, and anyone who writes well and is professional and educated must do now is monitor media outlets that use Haaretz and/or Gideon Levy as a source, and contact their writers and editors, and show them why Levy is a sick, biased liar, and educate media members not to trust Haaretz as an outlet.
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C.R.
2:26 am
Oct 24, 2012
This is a good thought and can help with some ill informed individuals–but does not take into account the reality of those who hate Jews and Israel, both Jew and non Jew alike, especially those who are in the media–as they for the most do not care about the truth–because they are all about the lie and the promotion thereof!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Peter Cohen
1:43 am
Oct 24, 2012
The big problem is that those who falsely accuse Israel of apartheid will quote these people. After all Levy is Jewish and Israeli so even Jews are seen to agree that apartheid exists. And the Jews in the diaspora have to face these cruel inferences. In Australia, a land traditionally with very little and no organised antisemitism people are sometimes forced to move through a barrier of BDS supporters when going into chocolate shop with Israeli connections.
And of course some misguided Jews are amongst them, generally those who feel insecure about their Jewish status. This even though there have been many respected Jews in high office in this country who have been open about their heritage
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C.R.
2:03 am
Oct 24, 2012
Mr. Cohen, How is Australia relevant to this story? Australia does have organized anti-Semitism at the highest levels and a growing and significant Islamist threat.
Unfortunately Israel has many self hating, God hating Jews who are working to destroy Israel and the Jews rightful place in it–while at the same time supporting murdering Islamic Arabs–and for the most these Jews are of a Marxist bent–the same kind of Jews who think Barack Obama is a good guy–how pathetic!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Peter Cohen
3:40 am
Oct 24, 2012
The relevance is that even in a country where Jews have always been secure and able to declare their religion and obtain respect there are still Jews who wish to dissociate themselves from Judaism by attacking Israel. I suspect that the do this through an unnecessary feeling of insecurity. We do have an increasing Muslim population and this is having an effect on us. Our Jewish establishments are now requiring security guards that previously were not required. The left has tended to become anti-Israel and people like Levy are a very bad influence.
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AG
2:27 am
Oct 24, 2012
The criticism of Haaretz and of Levy in this particular case is improper. DIALOG,
not Levy, performed the poll. The main question about apartheid is related to a realistic situation, one in which there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so Israel controls,
the whole territory from the Mediterranean to the jordan River.
Many Israelis believe that the control over the West bank by Israel is not reversible.
So the question about agreeing or not that 2.5 million Palestinians who live there
will vote to the Knesset is not hypothethical at all. The 74% for segregation on
roads in the West Bank is a fact, it does not matter if the reason is security.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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AG
2:35 am
Oct 24, 2012
The 33% against Israeli Arabs voting to the Knesset, as well as the 47% that
support the transfer of some of the Israeli Arabs to Palestinian territories, are clearly
a change from previous such polls, to the worse. It does not help if other countries
have simialr attitudes, Jews should be less racist than anyone else, given our
history, and being in danger can not supply an excuse to such attitudes, in particular
as we ourselves, by constructing settlments in the West Bank, create more hatred
than there was ever before.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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IA
2:36 am
Oct 24, 2012
The 33% against Israeli Arabs voting to the Knesset, as well as the 47% that
support the transfer of some of the Israeli Arabs to Palestinian territories, are clearly
a change from previous such polls, to the worse. It does not help if other countries
have simialr attitudes, Jews should be less racist than anyone else, given our
history, and being in danger can not supply an excuse to such attitudes forever, in particular
as we ourselves, by constructing settlments in the West Bank, create more hatred
than there was ever before.
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AG
2:42 am
Oct 24, 2012
Finally, from first hand, NIF had nothing to do with this poll. The poll was
ordered by a group of devoted Zionists and Isareli patriots, including
reserve Colonel Mordechai BarOn, former head of the Education corps in the IDF,
A former ambassador to S. Africa (2004-8) Ilan Baruch, a former CEO of
the foreign Ministry Alon Liel, Prof. of Political Science from Bar Ilan university
Menachem Klein, Former Member of Knesset MK Mossi Raz (Meretz),
Human Rights lawyer Michael Sfard, and former Peace Now
spokesperson Prof. Amiram Goldblum.
The DIALOG poll was done in the utmost professional manner possible.
503 is the regular number for random picking of respondents.
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Ed Frias
5:36 am
Oct 24, 2012
This year, a Palestinian man, Muhammad Abu Shahala, reportedly confessed under torture to selling his home in Hebron to a Jewish man. He has been sentenced to death after a hurried trial. Caroline Glick writes on her blog:
The PA was established in May 1994. The first law it adopted defined selling land to Jews as a capital offense. Shortly thereafter scores of Arab land sellers began turning up dead in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in both judicial and extrajudicial killings.
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Dan
11:02 pm
Oct 26, 2012
Imagine Ed, if there were a poll that asked Israeli Jews whether they approved of the ongoing purchase of huges tracts of Jewish land in the Gallil. Now imagine if the vast majority were in favor of restricting such purchase, particularly those financed by Saudi Arabia with the clear pupose of gaing control of a piece of Israel. Imagine the global outcry of “apartheid” and “racism”. No such outcry ever took place against the legal flat-out prohibition in Jordan and right here in the Palestinian territories against selling to a Jew. Open racism and ethnic cleansing by Arabs against Jews has always been totally acceptable to the west, particularly Christian Europe.
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David Pinto
8:40 am
Oct 28, 2012
So Ed goes off-topic and Dan, who has already gone off-topic before in this thread, goes off-topic again! .
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Ed Frias
5:37 am
Oct 24, 2012
Leaders of the Jewish community of Hebron wrote a letter to international leaders this week asking them to intervene with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and demand that he cancel Shahala’s sentence. They addressed the letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, the director-general of the International Red Cross, Yves Daccord, as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. In it they wrote, “It is appalling to think that property sales should be defined as a ‘capital crime’ punishable by death.
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Ed Frias
5:38 am
Oct 24, 2012
“The very fact that such a ‘law’ exists within the framework of the PA legal system points to a barbaric and perverse type of justice, reminiscent of practices implemented during the dark ages.”
They went on to make the reasonable comparison between the PA’s law prohibiting land sales to Jews to Nazi Germany’s Nuremburg laws that constrained and finally outlawed trade between Jews and Germans. The letter concluded with the question, “Is the Palestinian Authority a reincarnation of the Third Reich?”
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3 injured, houses hit, in renewed rocket onslaught on the South | Anne's Opinions
8:12 am
Oct 24, 2012
[...] Long-suffering residents of the south are in lock-down, having to remain within 15 seconds’ distance of their safe rooms or bomb shelters, school is cancelled, the rockets continue to explode, but so far, all the foreign press can find to write about Israel is that it is turning into an apartheid state. [...]
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Hoofdredacteur Michael Freilich: “geen apartheid in Israël” [beluister] | Joods Actueel
8:13 am
Oct 24, 2012
[...] (Engelstalige) duiding over de omstreden opiniepeiling: http://honestreporting.com/haaretz-creates-non-existent-apartheid-state/ http://cifwatch.com/tag/harriet-sherwood/ Gerelateerde artikels Opmerkelijke [...]
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Israël : Gidéon Lévy, journaliste islamo-gauchiste trafique un sondage dans le journal Haarets. | Israël Flash: informations et analyses sur Israël
10:06 am
Oct 24, 2012
[...] le fait remarquer le très sérieux Honest reporting, aucun des graphiques n’a été retranscrit dans le Journal, ce qui aurait eu pour effet de [...]
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Aspirator
7:22 pm
Oct 24, 2012
Learn the truth about Amiram Goldblum, who initiated the “suvey,” at http://www.isracampus.com
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Moll
9:12 pm
Oct 24, 2012
Survey was developed by DIALOG, by TAU Prof. Camil Fuchs, commissioned by the Yisraela Goldblum Fund, based on a sample of 503 interviewees. Questions written by academia-based peace & civil rights activists. Criticism needs to be levied at the DIALOG survey! Surely Camil Fuchs, in developing the Survey, exercised “scientific rigour” as taught in the institutions of higher learning. Ask DIALOG: i) statistical method used to obtain subj.sampling; ii) method used to select respondent demo’s; iii) did the demo’s reflect Israel’s pop. demo’s; iv) region respondents selected from; v) reliability & validity of questions; vi) how was bias controlled for.
FAULT DIALOG, Fuchs & Co., NOT LEVY!
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Reuven
3:51 am
Oct 25, 2012
Israelis should boycott the anti-Israel rag, Haaretz, in every respect. This partially German-owned abomination should be closed down. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass should be arrested and tried for treason.
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Jadzia
10:45 am
Oct 25, 2012
I hate conspiracy theories and generally don’t believe in them, but in this case I have to ask: who’s beyond Haaretz? Isn’t it possible, that this newspaper is run by or supported by Arab anti-Israel organizations? Criticism of any country can be necessary, but not in English, it only helps the enemy. If they want to make critiques, then write in Hebrew, so it won’t help destroying Israel. And I think Mr Levy’s articles are far beyond necessary criticism.
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EthanP
11:41 am
Oct 25, 2012
Jadzia; No conspiracy theory is needed. Israel, like here in the USA, has more than enough traitorous leftist journalists attempting to undermine there own government. Though I must say that considering the existential threat of extinction that Israel, unlike the USA, faces daily, I must say that I am amazed by the number of Israeli Jews prepared to undermine the state.
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Mr. Light-Bright
5:51 pm
Oct 25, 2012
Personally I prefer a country with a strong constitution and large body of voters, and the rest is not so important. Christians(and some others) suffer stealthy “apartheid” circumstance all over the middle east (except Israel). I don’t understand why of all places there is scrutinizing focus on Israel.
P.S. I don’t even care if there was a king of said country — I would want a constitution that protects me, and a peoples who aren’t racists. Giving someone privileges over another, doesn’t make them a racist per-say.
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Mr. Light-Bright
5:53 pm
Oct 25, 2012
I should give an example of the middle east: look up the ‘jizya’
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EthanP
6:05 pm
Oct 25, 2012
I would say (IMHO) that there are several reasons. One; and undercurrent of anti-semitism in the world at large. Two; Never doubt the influence that Arab oil money can buy. There are Islamic studies chairs in most major universities. They have also bought the influence of most major public relations fiirms. Three; The west has proven itself craven too many times to count. It’s easier for cowards to go along with the “savages”. Finally; Most of the “journalists” covering this are liberal/progressives. Even the Jewish ones. For some reason, these people are more likely to be anti-semites/Zionists.
PS: Arab interests now own stock in most major news outlets.
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David Pinto
8:46 am
Oct 28, 2012
There also Jewish Studies Chairs in many universities, something that Ethan conveniently fails to mention.
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elsa peña alatriste
9:28 pm
Oct 25, 2012
Creo que lo peor de todo es un judío que esta contra los judíos y contra Israel.
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Hello
3:28 am
Oct 26, 2012
I already posted way up above, that reports like these are only half the battle. The real battle is finding professional, well-spoken, intelligent people to reach out to media members and media outlets around the world who quote scumbags like Gideon Levy and dishonest newspapers like Haaretz as a source, and explain why it’s wrong to do so. And show them reports like this one. People have to sign up for Twitter, and/or get email addresses of the reporters that quote Gideon Levy, and actively share honestreporting dot com and Camera dot org reports that illustrate this stuff
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