In August 2016, an article in the English edition of Haaretz entitled “We’re American Jewish Historians. This Is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind” was the final straw for Jewish-American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. He famously shared the article on X (then Twitter) and added: “I think I’m getting ready to leave Haaretz behind, actually.”
Goldberg’s tweet sparked an online stir, and some Haaretz journalists protested his criticism. Goldberg pushed back that the paper’s “cartoonish anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism can be grating,” that he was tired of constantly reading about evil Israel in the newspaper’s opinion pages and added: “Look, when neo-Nazis are emailing me links to Haaretz op-eds declaring Israel to be evil, I’m going to take a break, sorry.”
This nine-year-old episode comes to mind again in light of Esther Solomon’s Dec. 17 letter to subscribers of Haaretz‘s English edition. In her letter, the English edition editor provides a thoughtful and thorough accounting of the sources of antisemitism in our time, from both the right and the left. She notes insane anti-Jewish conspiracy theories abounding on both extremes of the political spectrum.
Solomon faults liberal Western media outlets which refused to acknowledge that the ISIS-inspired at a Chanukah celebration in Australia’s Bondi Beach is a terror attack directed against Jews. “Are ‘antisemitism; and ‘Jews’ really the hardest words to say? And if so, why? What prevents mainstream outlets from stating the plain facts staring them in the face?” she queries, adding: “The contention that no one who could be associated with genocide in Gaza – meaning any flavor of ‘Zionist’ or any Jew unless proven otherwise – can be considered innocent, and thus a victim, should be limited to the darker corners of social media, not least because it is a dark mirror of the equally repulsive claim that there are no innocents in Gaza.”
On the other hand, the right refuses to recognize antisemitism when it comes from its own camp, and behaves as if hatred of Jews comes only from the direction of the left and radical Islam, the editor explains. Solomon continues: “That doesn’t explain the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, or the surging and explicitly antisemitic rhetoric inside the MAGA movement – involving conspiracy theories of exploitation and control, of Jews as the foundational source of evil in the world – which are amplified daily by Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens.“
It’s a strong and welcome condemnation of antisemitism, regardless of its origins. But then Solomon gets to the point of her letter and unfortunately undermines the important truths she had herself so carefully laid out. Anyone who wants to oppose the current wave of antisemitism, she writes, needs to support and read Haaretz:
That is why I encourage you to dive into Haaretz’s meticulous, independent but plain-speaking coverage of the Sydney Hanukkah terror attack, grounded in unparalleled expertise in the issues affecting the Jewish world specifically and liberal democracies more generally, both from inside and outside of Australia, for our news coverage, our commentaries, analysis, opinion pieces, backgrounders, podcast and social media.
Is Haaretz truly a worthy tool today in the fight against antisemitism? Has the newspaper’s character changed significantly since the days when neo-Nazis sent articles from it to Jeffrey Goldberg to justify their hatred of Jews?
Haaretz as a Tool for Legitimizing Antisemitism
The answer, as those who follow CAMERA’s work about Haaretz know, is a resounding no. The newspaper does not constitute a tool in the fight against antisemitism; on the contrary – it is the best friend of the antisemites. Solomon herself unintentionally underscored this point, referring in her letter to “conspiracy theories amplified by… Candace Owens.”
In a December 2025 podcast, Owens promoted a 19th-century antisemitic book and accused Jews of orchestrating the slave trade and racial strife in the United States (Screenshot from her podcast)
Candace Owens is indeed one of the key disseminators of antisemitic theories in our time. She is also an enthusiastic reader of Solomon’s newspaper. About a year ago, she appeared on Piers Morgan’s show, where she claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu is a murderous monster committing a “holocaust” against Palestinian women and children. When Morgan remarked to her that it’s problematic to rely on social media when it comes to facts, she clarified:
I’m now getting my information because I ended up signing for Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, because they’re protesting it. They’re calling this ethnic cleansing… If Israeli newspapers are calling this ethnic cleansing, why do we not have people in the western media that have the courage to call it the same? It’s clearly not antisemitism. Why on earth would Haaretz… an Israeli newspaper, be antisemitic and wanna see the undoing of Jews?
As a reminder, Candace Owens is, according to Esther Solomon’s own account, a disseminator of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Her affinity for the media outlet shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken declared at an event organized by his newspaper in London:
It [Netanyahu’s government, S.B.M] doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime upon the Palestinian population. It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements, while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls terrorists.
As is well known, the “freedom fighters” themselves declare that they aspire to eliminate the entire State of Israel and to kill Jews wherever they are. Schocken’s words enraged subscribers who cancelled by the hundreds, prompting the publisher to backtrack and the paper to publish an editorial denouncing his statement.
When confronted with the fact that Jew-haters love to read and rely on their newspaper, as happened with the Goldberg incident almost a decade ago, Haaretz journalists typically respond that they are merely reporting and protesting Israel’s crimes, and they bear no responsibility for who reads their reports. This is a false pretense.
In its reports and commentaries on Israel’s policies, the newspaper frequently adopts and disseminates the grossest lies against Israel, the most malicious version of the state’s founding, and the harshest and most debunked claims about Israel’s policies. But the problem with the newspaper does not end there. The truth is that the newspaper is a pioneer in legitimizing antisemites and in spreading explicitly antisemitic claims and tropes toward the Jews living in Israel and in the Diaspora. And in the years since the criticism voiced by Jeffrey Goldberg, this phenomenon has only intensified. The following examples, all from recent years, are only a partial collection, but certainly a representative one.
Whitewashing Antisemitism
About a month and a half ago, a lengthy and sympathetic Haaretz article provided superficial coverage of the so-called “Gaza Tribunal” – a sort of “people’s trial” held at Istanbul University in Turkey, which reached a predetermined conclusion: the State of Israel is guilty of committing genocide, along with a series of additional crimes, in Gaza. Haaretz reporter Yair Foldes, who traveled to Istanbul to attend, uncritically covered the event and its chairman Prof. Richard Falk:
Falk, who taught international law for decades at Princeton University and served as UN Special Rapporteur in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the previous decade, has often faced criticism for his views and activities. And, despite his Jewish background, some have accused him of antisemitism.
In a letter to the editors of Haaretz in both Hebrew and English, Esther Solomon among them, CAMERA pointed out that accusing Falk of antisemitism is not as unfounded as the article suggests. In the past, Falk published an explicitly antisemitic cartoon on his blog. In addition, Falk praised and lauded a book by Gilad Atzmon which alleged that “Hitler might have been right after all” and which speculated that the historical blood libels against Jews were not false. Atzmon’s antisemitic screed also determined that “The history of Jewish persecution is a myth, and if there was any persecution the Jews brought it on themselves.” Falk’s words of praise appear on the cover of the hate-filled book.
This essential context about Falk, which did not appear in the Haaretz article, is necessary for understanding the character of the man heading the “tribunal” and enabling readers to judge the validity of its conclusions. Unfortunately, even following CAMERA’s appeal to include the facts about Falk’s record of antisemitism, Haaretz editors opted to continue to withhold this information from readers. In fact, they were guilty of the same offense for which Solomon condemned other media outlets: ignoring blatant classical antisemitism so as not to harm anti-Israel claims.
This is not the first time that Haaretz whitewashed an antisemite who espoused anti-Israel views. Veteran reporter Gideon Levy has a longstanding friendship with Roger Waters, the former lead singer of Pink Floyd, for whom spreading antisemitic blood libels is habit. A gushing article emerged from Levy’s intensive two-day stay at Waters’ private summer home in New York.
A few years ago, Levy rushed to Waters’ defense on the pages of Haaretz: “If there is a non-antisemite in the world, Waters is the man.” He was particularly outraged by criticism of Waters’ comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, accepted by dozens of Western nations, includes: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Waters made this very comparison again and again.
Shortly after Oct. 7, Levy wrote a groveling and obsequious letter to Waters urging him to acknowledge that Hamas also commits atrocities, and pointing out that Israelis are sometimes murdered through no fault of their own. Waters, as expected, ignored it and continued his work of incitement.
Direct Dissemination of Antisemitic Claims
Haaretz does not content itself with whitewashing antisemites whose anti-Israelism it values. The newspaper also regularly publishes its own antisemitic claims. The aforementioned Gideon Levy has the richest record in this field. Beyond his fondness for various Israel-haters, Gideon Levy himself has disseminated blood libels and antisemitic stereotypes. In the past, he accused British Jews of dual loyalty because they feared the rise of Jeremy Corbyn. IHRA’s antisemitism definition includes: “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”
About three years ago, he claimed that “the Jewish establishment” could impose its will on Russian President Vladimir Putin. When approached for explanations – given there is no significant “Jewish establishment” in Russia – he did not hesitate to respond with yet another antisemitic libel, stating: “Certainly, the Jewish establishment. The international Jewish establishment. A body rich in power and influence.”
This vile trope, too, holds a place in IHRA’s antisemitism definition: “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”
Levy also doesn’t hold back when it comes to justifying terrorist organizations. In the past, for example, he mused about Islamic Jihad: “Is their goal just?” About the terror organization’s goal to eliminate Israel and establish an Islamic caliphate over the entire area from the river to the sea, through the path of jihad, ie terrorist attacks against Jews, he answered: “There is no goal more just than it.”
In an indication of the harmful impact of Levy’s libels, editors of the British newspaper The Guardian responded to complaints about antisemitic terminology in the paper, including referring to the Gaza Strip as a “concentration camp,” by arguing that there’s no problem with terminology as Israeli journalist Gideon Levy also uses it.
Levy is far from Haaretz‘s only purveyor of antisemitic canards. Regarding the “conspiracy theories of exploitation and control” against which Solomon rails, she should have a word with the writer Odeh Bisharat, who claimed that the United States is a “protectorate state” of Israel. Or with the culture reporter Shani Litman, who lavished praise on a film laden with references from the heart of Germanic and Nazi mythology. At its climax, in the tradition of Nazi propaganda, Israeli soldiers emerge like rats from sewer holes and run through the streets of Berlin draped in the Israeli flag to conquer the Reichstag, to replace street names with Zionist monikers, and to expel German train passengers. Their end goal, of course, is to control the entire world.
If Solomon dislikes media outlets that portray Jews “as the source of evil in the world,” perhaps she should have a word with the writer Yossi Klein, who wrote that Israelis unite joyfully around the murder of children.
Haaretz Against the Fight Against Antisemitism
If Haaretz truly wishes to join the fight against antisemitism, it should begin with a comprehensive overhaul in the corridors of its editorial offices. Sending an emotional promotional letter to subscribers simply doesn’t cut it.
For the Hebrew version of this post, see here.