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OpinioNet Contributed Commentary - Steven Plaut

February 19, 2002

Steven Plaut

With No Malice


  1. Israel’s Supreme Court heard an interesting case yesterday. It was Arik Sharon’s appeal against a lower court decision that nixed his attempt to sue Haaretz for libel. In a campaign similar to his successful suit against Time slime magazine, Sharon sued Haaretz because of a nasty piece written in 1991 by Uberleftist Uzi Benzamin, claiming Sharon had lied to Begin during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

    The lower court had found that Benzamin had lied himself silly but that his comments were made about a public figure and "without deliberate malice" and so were protected speech. Yesterday Israel’s politicized leftist Supreme Court agreed, and declared that Benzamin’s libels were all made "in good faith and without malice," and so were protected speech. The Haaretz editorial hails this court decision as a great victory for free speech, this exactly 48 hours after the same editorial came out and demanded that all free speech in Israel be suppressed for those with whom Haaretz disagrees.

    Now you realize what all this means? The court has declared that Benzamin’s piece was written in good faith and without malice, and that means his piece must be the ONLY such article written without malice and in good faith in the entire history of the newspaper!!

  2. The Eurotrash in the EU are all attacking the Czech Prime Minister today for his having had the nerve to tell the truth and compare Arafat to Hitler. So it might be a good time to buy some products made in the Czech Republic, plan a trip to Prague, send an email, and otherwise let the Czechs know that WE do not consider them a nasty distant little country about which we know little.

Steven Plaut
University of Haifa


Read other commentaries by Steven Plaut.

You can e-mail Steven at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il.

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Copyright © 2002 by Steven Plaut
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