to Haaretz: "Get rid of Gideon Levy"

Readers' Letters to Haaretz:

Get Rid of Gideon Levy

Take-A-Pen

16 April 2008

Read below 3 Readers' Letters to Haaretz, responding to Gideon Levy's "Whose government is this?" of 15 April 2007, from the Talkback section of the Haaretz website: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=848316&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Summary:

An overview of the numbers:

The selected three Readers' Letters below were the relatively moderate criticisms of Gideon Levy's credibility.

Out of the 110 Talkback letters which arrived until 2:00 AM 16 April, there were very few supporting letters to him; invariably from abroad; partly showing naïve remoteness from what is happening in Israel, partly seemingly written by trained pro-Palestinian writers.

The several tens of Israeli letter-writers unanimously condemn Levy, either in diplomatic terms, like "taking exception" or more bluntly: "Gideon Levy is totally off the Israeli Consensus" and "Gideon Levy is brain dead"

It seems that Gideon Levy's credibility has by now totally disappeared among Israelis, who know the facts from close. He has become a burden on Haaretz' credibility too and rightly so.

Haaretz' and its editors must take responsibility for politically tendentious untruths regularly published on its pages.

Take-A-Pen contemplated to give Haaretz again the ‘Liar of the Month' ‘Award' for this outrageous article of Gideon Levy. At the end we decided that this time we write the present warning only, hoping that Haaretz is going to do the necessary changes in its editorial policy regarding the writings of Gideon Levy and his sort.

1) Concise letter from London, England:

Quite a lopsided article.

Israel took steps ahead of the Quartet's Road Map, vacating Gaza and some of the West Bank. The Pals reciprocated by electing a terrorist govt. with a party platform of destroying Israel.

For Israel to continue giving in and getting nothing in return would have shown the success of terrorism.

2) Letter from Haifa, Israel:

True, we need peace.

But right understanding, hopefully leading once to peace is not helped by lies and incitement Gideon Levy consistently disseminates.

We all are entitled to have our views, but before forming them we must try to take our facts from reliable sources not from an uninhibited and hate-driven source like him.
He says nearly 20,000 Palestinian residents from a city `have already been forced to flee in fear of the settlers`. You should ask him how then the Palestinian population grows at huge speed there? Ask him how many Jewish citizens have been killed by Palestinians there and vice versa? He simply mixes the killers with the victims.

Unfortunately the whole image of Israel is besmirched by the systematic distortions of Gideon Levy, Amira Hass and their sort, quoted far too frequently, far above their value.

Practically all Israelis want peace. Israelis do not dance over dead Arabs. Israel took risks and made sacrifices not once, only to receive more terror, once from Arafat, now from Hamas.

The Israeli side is the last to be blamed

3) A letter from Tokyo, knowing the Israeli scene surprisingly well:

Haaretz is a wonderful paper however blighted by the observations of Mr. Levy. Too many of his comments are ludicrously off target.

E.g. The BBC poll ranking Israel as a negative influence: This poll would have showed the same results at any time over at least the last decade no matter which government was in power.
E.g. Disengagement: Following the consequences of leaving Gaza, as well as Lebanon, (rockets, Hamas, etc) , Mr. Levy is either stupid or disingenuous in stating that Israel should plunge headlong into disengagement from the West Bank. It will happen in time. But cautiously.
E.g. Saudi plan: This plan takes us back to the partition plan in 1948. Why wasn't it accepted by the Arabs then? An almost identical plan was proposed to Arafat in 1999. Again rejected. Shouldn't Israel then regard this plan with suspicion? After all it has to surrender valuable assets for a piece of paper.

Please get rid of Mr. Levy's inane ramblings.