Peretz on Haaretz

Marty Peretz, editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic:-

"In fact, I think that many of its columnists are intellectual
psychopaths...if you like grim fantasies all you have to do is read
Amira Hass, Akiva Elder, or Gideon Levy, now doing honest reporting
from Tokyo, or Amos Harel. If you want one reason for why the
international press is so hostile to Israel, it is because the only
paper foreign journalists read is Ha'aretz in English. It is an
exemplar of Jewish self-hate, full of ridicule, righteousness, and
loathing. Its circulation is going down, down, down."

Source

But, to be fair, he has criticism of my camp:

I want to say something about the politics of the settlers. Like every interest group and especially ideologically motivated interest groups, they want to create faits accomplis. And the settlers have. They are something of an impediment to Palestinian statehood. Nonetheless, since there is agreement in the wider Israel, a Palestinian state will at last be carved out of the old lines of Canaan. The settlers’ objections will simply be overlooked, and good money will be paid for their failed dream.

But they are not an impediment to Palestinian nationhood...Palestinian nationalism, such as it is, is a psychodrama...(just before this section Peretz wrote: Remnick puts a particularly onerous burden on Israel and the world. They “owe justice—and a nation—to the Palestinians.” I am sorry to say this. But, alas, it is a stupid sentence...)...It’s a sad fact to have admit, as Remnick does, that the Palestinians are not a nation.

Nevertheless, the settler issue nags at the Jewish nation. The settlers themselves are morally haughty, believing that they are what impedes Jewish alienation from God [???]. There are many other religious Jews in Israel who do not care a fig about Zion. All that interests them is their relationship to the Lord Almighty...The religious nationalists and the ultra-religious anti-nationalists now lay claim in Israel to that right; but, as sometimes with multiculturalism in Western societies, this right almost axiomatically intrudes and imposes on the majority. So the settlers are hijacking the politics of the state [or is that democracy?] although they are a small minority in a parliamentary system that is dependent for a coalition majority on tiny groups of Knesset members willing to join up for exorbitant stakes.

A small Jewish minority will not and cannot rescue the Palestinians and their national dream. Nor are these troublesome Jews the great impediment to their arrival as a state, if even not a nation-state. The fact is that the Palestinian Authority is reluctant to go into negotiations where the difficult matters will be on the table: Israeli security needs (including protection from mayhem in the rest of the Arab world), refugees, borders, and the city of Jerusalem, where trust is more important than maps.

(k/t=KS)
^