On-line media innovator Arianna Huffington is in Israel this week trying to understand and write about the complex situation for The Huffington Post.
On Night One, she dined with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who told Arianna that he was an "ABB: Anybody But Bush," and that the Palestinians "need to accept becoming a Palestinian state even before the borders are finalized."
What?
When PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad unveiled a plan last month for creating a Palestinian state within two years, Israeli leaders reacted with consternation...
The following day, Arianna met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, who seduced her with his optimism.
"It's hard to spend any time with Israeli President Shimon Peres and remain pessimistic about the possibility of peace," she wrote of the Nobel Peace Prize-winner whose centrist Kadima party has been relegated to back bench status while the conservative Benjamin Netanyahu leads a right-leaning coalition government that has taken a hard-line on talks with the PA and forcefully rebuffed US attempts to secure a freeze on Israeli settlement building that the nation was supposed to enact in the first phase of the "Road Map" for Middle East peace...
Once imbued with Peres-fueled optimism, Arianna set out to see the settlements for herself.
"Taking it all in, it's hard not to feel weighed down by a sense of hopelessness over the divisions that seem even more entrenched and permanent than the intruding settlements themselves," she wrote today. "Yet, in this land of miracles, we can still imagine the emergence of the kind of leadership that can transform both old hatreds and the facts on the ground."
There's no question: Arianna Huffington has been huffing some of that stuff that her pal, Bill Maher, mentions so often.
Posted by: David | September 26, 2009 at 11:12 AM
The question is whether Ms Huffington is getting a broad range of perspectives on the Israel/Palestine issue. Barak calls for a Palestinian state while he approves expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Soon Palestinians will be left with a swiss cheese of a state. Like Peres, Baraks talks but does not follow through.
Posted by: Zvuv | September 29, 2009 at 11:22 AM
If Huffington wanted to truly 'learn' about the conflict, she wouldn't be talking to propagandists and politicians. Perhaps that's her style of 'investigative' journalism - i.e. shilling.
I always found her website to be biased and dis-informative. For example, the comments are moderated and right wing Israeli firsters are allowed to post their diatribes and lies, while anyone who criticizes Israel with civility and well sourced facts is censored. Clearly, these tactics fit well with her idea of 'investigative' journalism - Just like Fox's "Fair and Balanced" nonsense.
Posted by: Adam | October 01, 2009 at 07:06 AM
I knew YouTube gave Max Blumenthal a hard time about his video in which he interviewed Israelis and Jewish Americans about Barack Obama and showed some of the blatant racist streams of thought in J'lem, but I hadn't realized Huffington Post also refused to show his video.
This link goes to short video where Max talks about it recently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgAlRejutlk&feature=player_embedded#
Posted by: Edie | October 10, 2009 at 06:20 AM
Follow the money: Israeli investors closed the last round of funding for HuffingtonPost. do you really expect her to be neutral?
Posted by: David Binder | October 11, 2009 at 12:24 PM
Dear Arianna: The Jewish national development cannot wait until the Palestinians make peace among themselves and make a unified view of their future. In absence of of common sense, this is one thing closest to impossible. While the Palestinians are focused on fighting, and Arab leaders argue among themselves...The Jews has to build comprehensive settlements and comfortable homes for their people. At any rate, these lands are technically within the UN recognized postwar(WW2) borders for Jewish homeland.
Posted by: guideman | October 27, 2009 at 09:52 PM
Had ever a Palestinian not learned that the 'fiery aggressions' they've been doing against the Israelis, is the fundamental justification of all the Jewish actions before community of nations?
Of course, the Palestinians and symphatisers would accuse the Israelis as provocateur. But before genuine justice that issue remains an accusation and has to be proven completely, or that the justification of Israelis be proven otherwise. This contention may last until 'the end of the world...'
Posted by: guideman | October 27, 2009 at 10:08 PM