Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet unanimously voted on 25 November to cut ties with Israel’s oldest newspaper, Haaretz, citing its critical coverage of the war on Gaza and comments made by the paper’s publisher expressing support for Palestinian “freedom fighters” and calling for sanctions on Israeli leaders.
The liberal Israeli daily newspaper is Zionist in orientation but sometimes publishes reports that are critical of the government and sympathetic to Palestinians.
The cabinet voted to approve a proposal that would end government advertising in the newspaper and cancel all subscriptions for state employees and employees of state-owned companies.
Haaretz responded by saying the initiative was an attempt to “silence a critical, independent newspaper.”
The proposal came in response to comments made by Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, who expressed support for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation during a speech in London last month.
According to CNN, Schocken stated during his speech that “It (the Netanyahu government) doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population. It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls terrorists.”
“In a sense, what is taking place now in the occupied territories and in part of Gaza is a second Nakba … A Palestinian state must be established and the only way to achieve this, I think, is to apply sanctions against Israel, against the leaders who oppose it and against the settlers,” he added.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, who spearheaded the proposal to cut funding to Haaretz, was angered by Schocken’s comments.
“We must not allow a reality in which the publisher of an official newspaper in the State of Israel will call for the imposition of sanctions against it and will support the enemies of the state in the midst of a war and will be financed by it,” Kari said in a statement.
Karhi also criticized the paper’s coverage of the war on Gaza.
“The decision came in the wake of many articles that damaged the legitimacy of the State of Israel in the world and its right to self-defense,” he said.
Hellbound and Down 