How can we explain that both the advocates of Israel and its opponents are converging on attacking the same newspaper, which is now being accused of two contradictory charges? In fact, a Likudnik website published an article entitled ‘Anti-Semitism and Israel-Hatred" on the Huffington Post', which was preceded a few days earlier by an article published by an antiwar website entitled ‘The Huffington Post: Israeli-Occupied Territory' The newspaper that is in the dock is an electronic publication that is only four year old. Nonetheless, it is competing today with the most prestigious American newspapers in terms of readership. It has such a powerful political influence that its correspondents are often invited to the press conferences held by the U.S President and they are given the chance to direct questions [to the latter]. Furthermore, the paper's publisher, Arianna Huffington, who has become the eponym of the newspaper, boasts her direct relationship with President Obama. She also insists that her newspaper is nonpartisan, and that it only seeks the truth, while avoiding clichéd thinking in what regards the dichotomy between left and right. However, objectivity requires that I present the claims of both the Likudniks and the peace advocates about the newspaper, before I can issue my inalienable verdict, which cannot be appealed. First, the Likudniks claim that: - The newspaper incites anti-Israel perceptions and hatred; some of the worst of these were published as comments by readers following the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. - The newspaper has allowed the readers who had such incendiary comments to return and write similar comments again, instead of banning them. - Despite the Huffington Post's claims of adopting a nonbiased policy, it welcomes and allows comments, while its moderators do not block insulting comments against Israel. After that, the article presents many examples of comments from readers, including some that attack Jews, but mostly ones that talk about the crimes of the occupation and the murder of women and children. I believe it likely that the Likudnik article was published in response to another piece published two weeks ago, written by Justin Raimondo, one of the best American commentators, and a journalist who has always wrote in opposition to American wars against Arabs and Muslims. (Similarly, this Likudnik website attacked the New York Times that will be in the dock in my article tomorrow, because of a minor news story. Its aim is probably to refute the accusation that the newspaper is biased to Israel in an indirect manner). For the title of his article, Raimondo chose a well known expression that was used by the writer Pat Buchanan to describe the congress. In turn, he wrote that although the newspaper claims to be unbiased and that its central mission is the search for the truth, when it came to the war on Gaza, the newspaper clearly sided with Israel in its news coverage, and failed to publish in any news item the number of Palestinian casualties. He added that while it is true that the newspaper published an article written by the moderate Palestinian activist Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the news item was preceded by an apology to the advocates of Israel, although the Huffington Post never apologizes for any article unless it is related to Israel. I also learned from Raimondo's article that Arianna received $25 million from Oak Investment Partners, of Palo Alto, California, a company that has significant investments in the Israeli arms and electronics industries that are directly linked to the Israeli government. I read the Huffington Post every day. It combines a collection of important articles that the newspaper itself publishes, as well as a selection of articles from other American newspapers. It also provides its readers with clips from political and entertainment television programs, and a wealth of other material that is otherwise unavailable in the printed press or websites belonging to printed newspapers. In other words, I am not an opponent of the Huffington Post or its publisher, but rather, I am a devoted reader. Nevertheless, I rule in favour of Justin Raimondo against the Likudniks, and from what I personally know, I recall that the Huffington Post lent its pages time after time to the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, a contrived Israeli apologist, allowing him to attack the Egyptian culture minister Farouq Hosni in the days leading up to the election of the UNESCO's Director-General. He claimed along with other Jews that the Egyptian minister is a book burner, which is a blatant lie, as he has never burnt books in his entire life. He then defended the director Roman Polanski and called for his release, even though the latter was convicted of statutory rape of a minor. What is worse than the above is when the Huffington Post published several pages about the war on Gaza issued by the Israeli foreign ministry over many consecutive days. These were full of lies of a ‘Goebbelsian' nature. According to those lies, Israel killed no one, and it was the Palestinians who were the aggressors. And when I attempted to comment on Bernard-Henri Lévy's articles and the Israeli propaganda, I could not reach the reader's mail section. The Likudnik website practiced nothing short of intellectual terrorism, as it emphasized the readers' comments on the electronic newspaper. The articles, selections and reports mention nothing against Israel, and in truth, there are many of those that support Israel. However, this is not enough for the Likudniks; they also want to ban Americans from practicing their constitutional right in expressing their opinion about the state of organized crime gangs. Today's topic bas been on my mind and in the notes that I collected for weeks. What motivated me to publish this in the end was the fact that I found many Western writers expressing opinions that I agree with or that I said before myself about the Huffington Post, the New York Times and the Washington Post. I shall continue with those tomorrow. [email protected]
