Later says freedom fighters who use terrorism must be opposed

Haaretz in government crosshairs after publisher calls terrorists ‘freedom fighters’

Newspaper boss also tells its conference in London that Israel is imposing ‘apartheid,’ should be sanctioned; some ministries cut ties with it; government consider complete boycott

Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken is seen at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem as he arrives for a court hearing on a lawsuit filed against the newspaper, January 13, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken is seen at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem as he arrives for a court hearing on a lawsuit filed against the newspaper, January 13, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

The ministries of the interior, education, and Diaspora affairs cut ties with the Haaretz newspaper Thursday, while the communications minister proposed a boycott covering all government bodies, after publisher Amos Schocken told a conference that Israel is imposing an “apartheid regime” on the Palestinians and referred to “Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls terrorists.”

In a letter to its spokesperson’s department, Interior Ministry Director General Ronen Peretz wrote that Schocken’s remarks “provoke disgust and show a disconnect from basic values.”

He said that Israel is in the midst of a war “that could not be more justified” following the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

The action would cover all advertising and announcements of government tenders in both the printed edition and on the Haaretz website, Channel 12 reported.

“Our ministry is entrusted with the campaign against the delegitimization of Israel, and it is astounding to specifically see a supposedly ‘Israeli’ organization acting against Israel from within,” Diaspora Affairs Ministry Director-General Avi Cohen-Scali said.

Education Ministry Director General Meir Shimoni likewise ordered an end to all cooperation with Haaretz, telling staff in a letter that Schocken’s remarks “contradict the values of the education system.”

Meanwhile, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed to the government that it end all interaction with Haaretz, including ads by the Government Press Office.

Such action, he wrote in the proposal, “will reduce the hard impact that Israeli citizens feel, not just from the newspaper’s publications, but also because they are required to fund it from their tax money.”

The boycott would not entail a disproportionate impact on freedom of speech, Karhi said.

He noted that Haaretz must have taken into account that its stance, as expressed by Schocken, would upset some of its clients, including the State of Israel.

In his remarks, made Sunday at a Haaretz conference in London and circulated on social media in a video apparently compiled from several excerpts from his speech, Schocken was seen saying, “The 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.”

“In a sense, what is taking place in the occupied territories and parts of Gaza is a second Nakba,” Schocken said, invoking a term describing the displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.

He said the only way to establish a necessary Palestinian state is “to apply sanctions against Israel, against the leaders who oppose it, and against the settlers.”

In a statement issued on Thursday evening, Schocken said he had reconsidered his remarks and should have used different wording regarding Palestinian freedom fighters.

“I’ve reconsidered what I said,” Schocken said. “There are many freedom fighters in the world and through history, perhaps also on the path to the establishment of the State of Israel, who carried out shocking and dreadful terrorist activities and harmed innocent people in order to achieve their goals.

“I should have said, ‘Freedom fighters who also use terrorist methods and need to be fought against.’ The use of terrorism is not legitimate,” Schocken said.

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi in the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem, October 30, 2024. (Dani Shem-Tov/Knesset)

Israel rejects accusations of apartheid in the Palestinian territories by pointing out that the Palestinians living there are citizens of the Palestinian Authority, which has a form of self-rule, and that Arab Israelis enjoy rights equal to those of their Jewish counterparts.

The Choose Life forum, which represents some terror victims and their families, said they had filed a complaint with police accusing Schocken of incitement and of encouraging harm to the state and its security forces.

“Such remarks are beyond the bounds of free speech and cross into incitement,” the forum said in a statement. By calling terrorists “freedom fighters,” it wrote, Schocken was “supporting the enemies of the state.”

Karhi had already called for ending government ties to Haaretz in November last year, citing the left-leaning newspaper’s reporting on the war.

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