No Israel-Nazi Comparisons In Today’s Haaretz? We’re Slacking

By Amos Schocken, Publisher

Thank you for coming to this meeting, Haaretz staffers. Together we can continue to forge new paths in journalism. But we can only do so if we meet certain requirements for production and content -and today’s edition of the paper, both online and in print, contains no in-house comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany. That’s a disappointment, and we have to remedy that oversight.

I would hate to see this publication go the way of other Israeli news outlets, where the only time you ever see an Israel-Nazis analogy is when it’s in a story about someone who made such a statement. We’re better than that, and you all know it. I know it – otherwise I wouldn’t have hired each and every one of you. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to manufacture comparisons of this country to the most evil, most reviled regime in history.

I know you try, Levy, but your work doesn’t appear everyday, and the rest of us have to pick up the slack. Benn, this is really your bailiwick. You can’t drop the ball like this. It’s already too late for today’s print edition, but there’s no reason the website can’t have a couple of pieces up by this afternoon naming Netanyahu, Bennett, Shaked, and a couple of others for good measure as the reincarnations of various top officials of the Third Reich.

Hitler is trite, and so is Eichmann. Goebbels you can manage, if you don’t overdo it, but there are literally hundreds of other Nazi higher-ups you can use as analogies for anyone who disagrees with far-left politics. Jews, that is. We have to be very careful, because it’s not our mission to point out the fascist tendencies of Arab politicians, whether Israeli or Palestinian. As far is this publication is concerned, only Jewish fascism matters.

That’s why it’s so important that we maintain our drumbeat of Israel-Nazi analogies. We cannot legitimately aspire to be included among the Global Left if we are derelict in that august collective’s primary purpose.

So get it together, people. I have already instructed the management to include in its periodic performance evaluations an examination of each writer’s adherence to a quota of such comparisons. In this day and age of instability, we cannot rely on impulsive statements by high-ranking IDF officers to supply that quota for us. Proactivity is the name of the game. Now get to it.

Unless you want the punishment cell.