If you haven’t been following the furor of Larry Derfner’s take on the Eilat attacks and Palestinian terror, the Jerusalem Post fired the veteran columnist.
The original commentary, “The awful, necessary truth about Palestinian terror,” — published on Derfner’s personal blog — justified Palestinian terror:
But while I think the Palestinians have the right to use terrorism against us, I don’t want them to use it, I don’t want to see Israelis killed, and as an Israeli, I would do whatever was necessary to stop a Palestinian, oppressed or not, from killing one of my countrymen . . . .
Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack. They had the same right to fight for their freedom as any other unfree nation in history ever had.
In response to the blowback, Derfner removed the post (subsequently, our colleagues at CAMERA republished it) and apologized. But the Jerusalem Post fired the columnist, telling Derfner it received hundreds of notices of subscription cancellations.
I’ve seen enough blog posts assessing Derfner’s commentary and apology, but I want to know what readers think. So I’m putting the question up for debate.
Did Larry Derfner deserve to be fired from the Jerusalem Post?
© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
