The Left: Terrorized By Talkbacks (Israel's Left Gets Upset At Non-Leftist Net Postings Alert)

Israel's Left has always hated "talkbacks". Those are the little responses that people can write to articles on the web versions of newspapers. In Israel, where the newspapers are largely under the hegemony of the Left, and especially at Haaretz, whose concept of political pluralism resembles that of Pravda back in the happy days of Brezhnev, "talkbacks" are the main or only venue in which non-leftists get to have a say. But in Israel talkbacks - a bit like radio phone-in shows in the US (and in Israel) are dominated by the non-Left. Even at Haaretz, which almost never allows non-Leftist opinion to be aired on its print pages, the talkbacks are almost wall-to-wall rightwingers. Even though responses are monitored (mainly for crudeness and libel). Ditto at the other papers.

That has gotten the Left upset. Haaretz today runs an Op-Ed by Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, titled "The democratization of evil", which can be read in English here:

Oz-Salzberger, whoteaches law at the University of Haifa and is the daughter of Amos Oz, has previously expressed reservations about "offensive" uses of freedom of speech, such as when it offends Moslems. See Melanie Phillips comments on this here:

"The Israeli context is particularly interesting. The talkback policies at the news sites in Israel, including those of newspapers, are more liberal than those of their Western counterparts. The local surfers are faster and blunter than their brethren, who live in societies that are more serene than ours, and the artery that connects their gut feelings to their fingers on the keyboard is shorter. Thus, if evil seethes in all cultures, here it rises more swiftly to the surface and to the chains of responses. In this matter, too, Israel is a kind of precursor of the post-modernist camp, a fascinating touchstone for human issues of all sorts.

Violence, and especially nationalist crime, evokes in the Israeli surfer a spectrum of emotions that is certainly no different from the general homo sapiens range, but it is both sharper and more open than is customary in other cultures (and this includes Internet cultures). When Shalhevet Pass, a baby who did not live to understand that she was a Jewish settler in Hebron, was shot and killed, one person who lives among us took the trouble to write to the NFC (News First Class) Web site that the murder victim "stank of the blood of slaughtered Palestinian children."

"This phrase, which is sadly engraved on the computer servers, is neither leftist nor rightist. It is pure evil. And when a Jewish fanatic murdered taxi driver Taysir Karaki, who drove him from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, quite a number of respondents hurried to the Ynet and Walla! Web sites, and also to that of Haaretz, to celebrate the blood that was spilled. "Those Arabs can just keep on whining," they typed. "What is an Arab doing in Tel Aviv anyway? He was probably planning a terror attack." And in the best of succinct talkback style: "Poor Arabs hahaha." This is not right, this is not left, this is evil."

"A handful of weirdos with keyboards? We have long known that this is not the case. There probably isn't a single Israeli who dwells among his people, in taxis and at tables, who hasn't heard such things said aloud innumerable times. This is about the human soul, unbridled and uninhibited, free of the muzzles of cost and censorship that publication of an opinion in print and in public entails. Many evil bytes pass through the exhausted hands of Web site editors. Israeli news channels usually censor very crude responses, including "Death to the Arabs," as well as messages that involve the right to privacy and the fear of libel. But how do you define a text that the screen does not tolerate?"

Now it is true that some talkbacks are crude and vulgar. After all, most of those writing them are folks from the streets, not college profs. But one suspects that what REALLY upsets people like Oz-Salzberger is the fact that these talkbacks are a far more reliable indicator of the political sentiments of the average Israeli than are the elitist Op-Eds at Haaretz, and the average Israeli despises the delusions of the Left and rejects the entire Oslo Ascendancy.

Steven Plaut has a good word this morning about the Left's dominance of the media. Through "talbacks" - non-Leftist Israelis get to express views that are out of bounds in the "official" media. Thus, in Israel, like in the U.S, elite opinion does not necessarily represent the views of the average person. An Israeli MSM editorial and op-ed penned by the stable of Leftists will tell you little about what average Israelis think is going on in their country. No wonder the Israeli Left is so terrified of what Israelis have to say about the idiocy of the Left on the Web. Just check out the talkback forums are Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. The difference is enlightening.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

Just makes me want to scream "Death to the Islamofascist imperialists and their running dog lackeys".

(Co-opting the most outrageous slogans of the left is so satisfying).

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