Ha'aretz putsch
It appears that the Israelis are closing down many if not all of the sources of critical information coming out of Israel. The hypocrisy of it all is that Israel complains that when the British Academic Union proposes a boycott of Israeli academic institutions as a way to pressure Israel and to protest Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians the Israelis start to scream that the proposed boycott is a violation of freedom of speech and a violation of academic freedom. Israeli authorities have been crushing academic freedom and free speech for Palestinians, and even Israeli critics, for decades. Israel does not want its own population and the rest of the world to know what it is doing to the Palestinians.
UPDATE: according to a reliable and well-informed source this report is highly exaggerated. This is what I've been told:
a.. The new German investors own only about 10% of the paper. Their major influence is in forcing general cutbacks (something common to newspapers around the world); they don't care too much about the politics.
b.. Amira Hass is on sabbatical leave at her own request. This comes directly from her.
c.. Gideon Levy's Twilight Zone column has not been scrapped. It appeared two days ago as normal.
d.. Several reporters left/were sacked at the time the new editor, Dov Alfon, took over. This is again fairly normal. My source tends to agree with Dr Naor that the selection was essentially financial rather than political (although in Israel they are much intertwined.)
e.. From My Source's reading of Eldar's work in both English and Hebrew, he says there has been no change in his output.
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