Ha'aretz Continues the Tradition of Passover Blood Libel

It started 3,500 years ago in the land of Egypt: " we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt," the story of Exodus says. The 10th and final plague hit the firstborn sons of every Egyptian. To avoid the plague Jews smeared the blood of a slaughtered lamb on the doorposts of the Jewish homes, the death passed over them. Since that day, The Passover blood libel has followed us everywhere we go and continues even today, al-Durah, nuclear tipped warheads in Lebanon, targeting innocent children in Gaza etc. And these libels are being perpetuated by the established media such as the BBC, CNN and the NY Times.

It is rare, however, when an Israeli Newspaper perpetuates that blood libel, unless,  of course, that Newspaper is Ha'aretz. Last year, Ha'aretz Editor, Danny Rubinstein called Israel an “apartheid state” when speaking before a UN conference in Brussels, on a World Zionist Organization sponsored speaking tour. Rubinstein refused to apologize for his false allegations.  Akiva Eldar political editor of Ha'artz endorsed and expanded upon Mearsheimer and Prof. Stephen Walt’s thesis that American Foreign Policy is controlled by the Jews. And of course it was David Landau who at the time was with the Ha'aretz Editor-in- Chief who begged Secretary of State Rice to "rape" Israel into making peace.

Even with a track record such as that, the Ha'aretz latest blood libel is surprisingly abhorrent. Last week Ha'aretz reported supposed wide-spread IDF abuse of citizens in Gaza. Of course they could only find two examples and those two examples where rumors that were passed along. And the source of one of the rumors is an ultra-leftist who was once jailed for refusing to guard settlers at a religious ceremony.  It certainly seems as if Ha'aretz was too anxious to spread a blood libel, than to investigate the facts.

As Melanie Phillips reports:

There are precisely two charges of gratuitous killing of Palestinian civilians under allegedly explicit orders to do so. One is what even Ha’aretz made clear was an accidental killing, when two women misunderstood the evacuation route the Israeli soldiers had given them and walked into a sniper’s gunsights as a result. Moreover, the soldier who said this has subsequently admitted he didn’t see this incident – he wasn’t even in Gaza at the time – and had merely reported rumour and hearsay....


The second charge is based on a supposedly real incident in which, when an elderly woman came close to an IDF unit, an officer ordered that they shoot her because she was approaching the line and might have been a suicide bomber. The soldier relating this story did not say whether or not the woman in this story actually was shot. Indeed, since he says ‘from the description of what happened’ it would appear this was merely hearsay once again. And his interpretation was disputed by another soldier who said:


She wasn't supposed to be there, because there were announcements and there were bombings. Logic says she shouldn't be there. The way you describe it, as murder in cold blood, that isn't right.


This is not just bigotry. It is medieval witch-hunt territory. And it’s global.

I recommend the entire article, read it by clicking here The Ha'aretz blood libel by Melanie Phillips