ENOUGH OF GIDEON LEVY

At what point will it be determined that Gideon Levy has crossed the line of journalistic integrity? When will Haaretz finally decide to muzzle its Israel-hating attack dog?

In Thursday’s Haaretz Levy took it upon himself to blame slain Lt. Col. Dov Hariri and the whole IDF for the violation of UN cease-fire 1701 by the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Calling the IDF and it commanders arrogant, Mr. Levy took us on one of the most fantastic and ludicrous adventures that make Wonderland look like a reality TV show.

He compares the LAF actions to that of IDF actions on the Israel, Gaza border. Obviously Mr. Levy couldn't care less that our soldiers on the Gaza border are dealing with IED’s on a daily basis and the people who shoot are Hamas, Islamic Jihad or some other Palestinian organizations operatives trying to plant those IEDs.

I’m sure he’d much rather see our boys blown to pieces by those IEDs than prevent the terrorists from planting them.

That’s right, Gideon Levy equates a father of four -- murdered while directing a routine job of maintenance on our Border Fence with Lebanon, to Islamic Terrorists trying to plant explosives intended to kill our soldiers.

The excuses he gives for the LAF are so sickening that one has to truly wonder how Haaretz could print something as vile as this Op-ed piece, without at least a twinge of conscience. Maintaining journalistic freedom is one thing, but crossing a certain line of integrity is totally another thing.

What makes this article even more sick is that Levy admits clearly that the IDF did nothing wrong. Yes, THE IDF WAS arrogant (in Levy’s mind) for not listening to a UNIFIL request to postpone the work. This work was being done in Israeli territory; the IDF did coordinate it with UNIFIL – Gideon even admits this.

Instead of performing the duty of journalist and presenting facts – which he claims to be doing early in the piece, Mr. Levy instead offers up some distortions and a couple of outright falsehoods.

Levy claims that BOTH LAF soldiers and UNIFIL soldiers shouted at the IDF to stop work on cutting down shrubs that would make perfect hiding spots for Hezbollah IEDs.

Here is the problem: every report, even that of UNIFIL (no friend to Israel) states otherwise. Every report states that the LAF -- and only the LAF -- started yelling curses at the IDF soldiers. UNIFIL soldiers never shouted a thing at the IDF. Why? Because they knew well enough that the IDF was working in sovereign territory of Israel. The LAF soldiers next yelled at the IDF to leave the area, and the IDF boys responded by yelling back that they were in Israeli territory.

Just after that an LAF sniper shot Lt. Col. Dov Hariri dead with a head shot.

The following is very important: Lt. Col. Hariri was not anywhere close to the fence. He was supervising the operation from a point well above the maintenance work. He was killed intentionally, with NO preceding LAF shots fired in the air (as posited by Mr. Levy).

Even if the LAF then did fire shots in the air, they still broke the cease-fire and responsibility lies ONLY with them. The LAF cannot dictate what Israel does on her sovereign territory. If it were to be that way, IDF soldiers would be picking the Lebanese army apart on a daily basis.

What Mr. Levy also did was to bury the real reason why the LAF ambushed and killed an IDF Lieutenant Colonel. Hezbollah and Syria are incredibly afraid of the UN Tribunal of Lebanon. They know the UN Tribunal is about to put responsibility on Hezbollah bigwig Mustafa Badr al-Din for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafik Hariri. That is, the UN Tribunal for Lebanon is going to blame Hezbollah and Syria for the assassination. If Levy were to report something close to the truth, it would defeat his ability to blame Israel for every idiotic action carried out by the Arabs.

What Gideon Levy wrote today is a hideous insult to the father of four children, killed while doing nothing more than his job, in his country’s territory. What Gideon Levy wrote today gives approval for this illegal and provocative behavior of the Lebanese Armed Forces.

What Mr. Levy wrote today is yet another in a long line of his insults to Israel and Israelis. Worse, his claim of IDF arrogance is an astounding case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The real truth, Mr. Levy, is that your “better-than-thou” attitude is as worthless as the paper you write for.