Israel’s Version of Bob Woodward

Michael Ledeen
Faster, Please!
12 December '10

I guess every free society has its own celebrated “investigative reporters,” and the Israeli version of Bob Woodward—the reporter believed to be the ultimate insider—is Ronen Bergman of Yediot Aharanot. Like Woodward, Bergman is important in understanding the thinking of a part of the political class, but, like Woodward, he’s not always reliable when it comes to reportage and analysis.

Take, for example, his article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, in which he tries to argue that the Wikileaks cables do not provide any reason for Israelis to be pleased. He says “Transcripts of meetings between Gulf Arab leaders and U.S. officials show that while Arab hatred and fear of Iran is considerable, hostility toward Israel is just as great.”

That’s quite an astonishing statement. Do you remember reading any cable in which an American diplomat reported on any Arab leader urging the United States to bomb Israel? I certainly do not, but I read quite a number of cables quoting Arab kings, princes and ministers calling for us to attack Iran. So it seems to me empirically false to claim, as Bergman does, that Arab “hostility toward Israel is as great as their hatred of Iran.”

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