Credibility of Ha'aretz correspondent Gideon Levy undermined by revelation

Aaron Lerner Date: 27 April 2002

Irit Linor, a popular Left-wing author, columnist and radio personality,
revealed this week that Gideon Levy neither speaks, reads, or understands
Arabic. Levy's pro-Palestinian reports appear regularly in Ha'aretz,
including a weekly feature in the Friday Magazine.

In a letter to Ha'aretz in which she explained why she was canceling her
subscription to Ha'aretz for its anti-Israel position that was published
this Friday in Hatzofeh and distributed widely via Internet, Linor wrote:

"When Gideon Levy charges Israel with changing Marwan Barghouti from a peace
lover to the organizer of suicide attacks, this is as logical an
interpretation as claiming that the wave of attacks on September 11 was a
Mossad plan. Once he told me in a private conversation that he would not
drive a hundred meters to save the life of a settler, and it appears to me
that his loves and hates have stained for a long time his heart touching
reports from the occupied Palestinian territories. . . . He is one of the
few Arab affairs correspondents in the world who doesn't know Arabic, doesn'
t understand Arabic and doesn't read Arabic. He makes due with simultaneous
translation."

Levy's reports never indicate that he is using a translator, nor the
identity of the translators.

Not only can translators filter the message. If they themselves are part of
a group (for example Fatah) they can prevent, by their very presence,
interviewed Palestinians from straying from the Palestinian propaganda line.
Last week one of the parents of a young Gazan shahid declared he would kill
the Palestinian who sent his son to his death the moment he finds out who
did it. Such remarks do not find their way into Levy' reports.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director
IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-5480092
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
pager 03-610666 subscriber 4811
Website: http://www.imra.org.il