Jerusalem – Politicians from across the political spectrum condemned the left-wing newspaper Haaretz Thursday for running an op-ed article calling religious Zionists dangerous.
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The article, by veteran journalist Yossi Klein, said religious Zionists were “more dangerous than Hezbollah, hit-and-run drivers or girls with scissors.” The article accuses religious Zionist of wanting to cleanse Israel of Arabs and take over the country.
President Reuven Rivlin said Klein’s words were “slander that reveals deep hatred.” He said religious Zionism was better and more deeply rooted than all its critics.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the article “shameful and delusional.” He said the newspaper had “lost it completely,” while religious Zionists are “the salt of the earth” and serve Israel in the IDF and national service.
It was not the first time Netanyahu has blasted Haaretz. In January 2012, he was quoted saying that Israel’s two main enemies were The New York Times and Haaretz.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman called upon the citizens of Israel to immediately stop purchasing and reading Haaretz, which has dropped in recent years to be only Israel’s sixth largest circulation Hebrew daily after Israel Hayom, Yediot Aharonot, Calcalist, Ma’ariv, and Globes, according to TGI ratings that were printed in Haaretz.
“Haaretz has long been a platform for haters of Israel, but printing the article by Yossi Klein, a frustrated, irrelevant journalist who failed as an editor, crosses all red lines,” Liberman said.
Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid mocked Liberman, noting that in April 2016, he promised that he would assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniya within 48 hours if Haniya did not return the bodies of Israeli soldiers. Haniya is alive and well and recently was promoted, but the bodies have not been returned.
“If we can learn from the dramatic advancement of Ismail Haniya since the false threats of Liberman, we can soon expect a rise in subscriptions to Haaretz,” Ravid wrote on Twitter, advising the defense minister to “continue.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called on Klein to apologize, as did Hagit Rein, mother of Bnaya Rein, a religious Zionist IDF soldier who was killed by Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon war. But Klein defended his opinion in an Army Radio interview, saying that they were his views and not those of the newspaper.
Haaretz publisher Amos Shocken said he could not understand the reactions to the article. He called the reactions “poisonous.”
typical Zionism hate Yahadus but love Arabs.
As a religious Jew I can attest that this is absolutely true. He is as right as the sun is shining here in NY. Levelheaded clearhaded thinking. The religious zionists are a dangerous cult. They shld be regarded with suspicion worse than arabs sadly to say. They wld blow up an Arab just as the an Arab wld blow them up. They only diffrnce is that their jewish blood doesnt allow them to be suicidal. Thats the only diffrence.