Israeli gov’t severs ties with paper over publisher’s controversial remarks

The controversy erupted when the paper’s publisher, Amos Schocken, described Palestinian terrorists as ‘freedom fighters’ while addressing a Haaretz conference in London on Oct. 27.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

The Israeli government is severing ties with the Haaretz daily over the publisher’s controversial remarks about Palestinian terrorists, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi announced on Sunday.

“We will 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,” Karhi said.

“We advocate a free press and freedom of expression, but also the freedom of the government to decide not to fund incitement against the State of Israel,” he added.

The measure means the government will “sever any advertising relationship with the newspaper Haaretz and calls on all its branches, ministries and bodies, as well as any government corporation or body funded by it not to have contact with the Haaretz newspaper in any form and not to publish any publications in it.”

The controversy erupted when the paper’s publisher, Amos Schocken, described Palestinian terrorists as “freedom fighters” while addressing a Haaretz conference in London on Oct. 27.

“The [Benjamin] Netanyahu government doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population. It dismisses the costs to both sides for defending the [West Bank] settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls terrorists.”

Schocken later issued a clarification, saying he should have expressed himself differently. “As for Hamas, they are not freedom fighters,” Schocken wrote. Haaretz‘s editorial board distanced itself from the publisher’s remarks.

The left-wing daily often publishes content critical of the Israeli government’s policies towards the Palestinians.

The Schocken family has controlled Haaretz since 1937 when Salman Schocken, a German-Jewish publisher and businessman, acquired the newspaper.

At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 97 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead.

Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.