What I Find Ha'aretz A Must-Read; Why You Perhaps Should As Well

Frequently, people drop a note and ask for recommendations for publications outside the usual suspects in American media; almost invariably, one of the publications I highly recommend is Ha'aretz, which I believe to be Israel's finest newspaper.

I say this for a number of reasons. Just as with the U.S., Israel faces the problem of corporate media and media driven by partisan interests. Ha'aretz however offers a diverse range of voices, from hard liners and settler zealots of the Likud Party and others, but all the way along the continuum to some of the finest minds I get to read in my daily media perusal (and I try to hit at least a dozen papers around the world each morning).

While we talk about terrorism here, it's often far more abstract. Few of us have to worry about climbing on a city bus or visiting our local market or coffee shop for fear that doing so may put us right in the striking range of a suicide bomber. Too often, this has been reality in Israel.

But many in Israel see this issue - and that they would be terrified is most understandable - in a greater context, one in which they can, despite their fears, appreciate that building a huge wall, as Ariel Sharon ordered, or impoverishing their Palestinian and other-Arab neighbors will do nothing to bring about peace and is, sadly, far more likely to cause more pain for themselves and their country as well as for everyone else.

Too frequently, in this country, our leaders speak of Israel as a country with a single voice that is, beneath the surface, as anti-Muslim and anti-Arab as our own. But the Israel I see in Ha'aretz and the Israelis I'd met real-time as well as come to know through correspondence in the last few years are hardly one-dimensional.

Even if you're not looking to understand Israel, I don't see how we can separate ourselves from the conflict in the Middle East because it is tied - both intrinsically as well as politically and in some very bizarre ways, through an almost surreal alliance between our ultra-religious right and the farthest right of the Likuds/settlers/extreme Zionists (each looking for their own version of winning through a version of Rapture) - to the health of the entire world.

In my humble opinion, reading Ha'aretz - and not just the headlines, but the many individual essays and the forums where Israelis (Jews and non-Jews) post comments - gives a much needed perspective that you simply aren't going to find in American or British papers. It allows you to see beyond Israel, too, into Iraq and Iran, into Syria and Lebanon. And it gives you the gift of insight you won't find anywhere else, including into schizophrenic U.S. policy that seems to do little but increase tensions between Israel and its neighbors. Example: while we barely paid attention to the war Israel engaged in within Lebanon last summer, Israelis were involved in very serious debate over a) whether this action was proper and b) whether this was a war waged in proxy for the U.S. to send a signal to Iran and Syria, who are often viewed as enabling Hezbollah's power in Lebanon.

For example, on any given day, you see how Israelis are as torn by the leadership of their country as we are here with the Bush Administration. A great many Israelis are gravely concerned that the operation of the country under Ehud Olmert, Sharon's hand-picked successor - and its sometimes unholy alliance with the Bushies - not only makes things worse for the Palestinians, but makes every Israeli citizen far less safe. Israel has the right - and we have the obligation as "our brother's keeper" to help ensure this happens - to exist. But, as you'll see often in Ha'aretz, many Israelis recognize they have many neighbors in the Middle East who also have the right to exist; to deny them this right can only bring more fear, hate, and ultimately, death and destruction.

Call me idealistic (and it would be an all too apt label to attach to me), but I truly believe that the answers may have to come from us - the people of the U.S., the people of Israel, and the people of Arab/Muslim countries, to name but a few - and to be able to accomplish that, we must understand what goes on outside our respective bubbles. I believe reading Ha'aretz, for example, is one of the ways we can learn and begin a dialogue independent of our governments.

OK, I'm kickin' the soapbox back under my desk. But let me add that Ha'aretz is a good read, too. 'Nuff said.