The Israel Factor: Readers' reactions

"The Israel Factor" had not even been online for a minute when I got the first email - the one I was expecting - from an angry reader.

"How dare you?" read the subject line, followed by "How dare you interfere with our election?" The writer, Lee Benning, was clearly upset. "I think this is by far the most outrageous thing I have ever heard," he wrote.

And one would hope that he didn't overstate his position. If this was really, actually "the most outrageous thing" he had ever encountered, he must have had a life of relative calm.

However, what strikes me as worthy of some serious reaction was the first sentence in this letter. It reads: "We don't rank your Prime Ministerial candidates for how good they'll be for the USA." This is something, I suspect, that will be on the minds of many of our readers, as will a number of other questions.

So here it is: the email we received so far and my reaction. And one more word before I start: many readers reacted positively to the new feature, and I thank them all for that. My response today, however, will focus on the negative.

"We don't rank Israelis" I

I'll start with the comment I mentioned above. Americans, to date, haven't rated Israeli candidates in the same way we are doing it now. A similar comment was that, "no foreign country, not even Israel, has the right to influence our domestic elections."

Now, we need to clarify the phrase "we don't rank your Prime Ministerial candidates..." in particular the the "we" part. Who's "we"? We Americans, we American newspapers, we the American public?

Haaretz is a newspaper, and Rosner's Domain is a daily blog - we are not a branch of the Israeli government. Some people, readers, tend to get confused, but they shouldn't. The panel of experts we assembled is not an "official" Israeli group, and it represents only the people who participate.

The ranking is in no way the ranking of any such "we" as in "we Israelis," or "we the State of Israel," and not even "we Haaretz journalists." It is merely "we the members of the panel." And I don't see how can anyone argue that a group of interested people can't gather together to rank whatever they like.

"We don't rank Israelis" II

And now to another reaction to the same statement:

If we talk about America and Israel, one shouldn't be so naive as to say that Americans don't ever meddle in Israeli politics. Claiming such a thing is a distortion of reality. America - the American government - has meddled in Israeli politics many times and in a far more influential way than Israel has ever interfered in U.S. politics.

Bush senior, for example, was instrumental in toppling the Shamir government, and tried as hard as he could to let Israelis know that Yitzhak Rabin was his choice for the next prime minister. The same can be said about the Clinton administration and the Netanyahu government. And you don't even have to take my word for it, just read Madeleine Albright's memoirs and you can see for yourself.

A year ago I wrote this in Haaretz: Many officials of the Clinton-era State Department, including Albright, her aide Martin Indyk, the Consul General in Jerusalem Ed Abington, and others, believe to this day that they made a decisive contribution to the victory of Ehud Barak.

"Netanyahu was defeated because of his relations with the administration," one said.

Everyone who hates Israel is going to latch on to this like stink on a monkey

Can I argue with that? I really can't. The reader who sent this to me in order to explain why "The Israel Factor" is something we shouldn't have done in the first place is right: It will probably be used by people who hate Israel (This reader called me "stupid," but also said that I'm "usually very good." I would like to thank him for both observations).

But what is this reader really saying - that we should never do whatever-it-is that might enrage Israel-haters or provide them with ammunition? And, yet again, who's this "we?" We "the newspaper" print many things that could be used by people who hate Israel or Jews. You can't be a newspaperman if you constantly worry about the distorted ways in which bad people might use your material.

And let me take it further and ask this: What about American synagogues who put a "Support Israel" sign in their front yard - is there a danger that it will be used against Israel and the American Jewish community? And what about Israeli officials who come to speak in the annual AIPAC conference? Can all this be used by "everyone who hates Israel"? So what should we do ? hide from expressing any opinion?

"It will look like an AIPAC-sponsored site to increase Israeli influence."

I'm stating the obvious here, but let me be clear: Neither AIPAC nor the Israeli government, or any other organization, group or lobby financers took part, played any role, influenced, got an advance copy, asked that we change, or do or not do anything in this project. Haaretz is a news organization and acts accordingly, no matter what it might "look like."

"You don't take into account what Republicans in this country want to do to the Jews"

This is a complaint of a totally different nature as it deals with the content of "The Israel Factor" rather than with its mere existence. I got couple of such letters (some readers had worries about both about the publication and about the content).

For them, I want to clarify again the method of this feature.

1. A panel of eight experts is responsible for the ranking, and each of them votes separately and freely on five questions. As we assembled the panelists, we tried to make sure that they would represent more than one opinion regarding the tricky question of what constitutes an American president who is "good for Israel."

2. We do not reveal the way with which each panelist votes, but let me assure you that they do not vote the same way and for good reason.

Some of them would like to see a president that is more involved in "peace-making" and some of them wouldn't. Some want a president who'd pressure Israel for concessions and some don't. Some generally think that a Republican is better for Israel, and some believe a Democrat is better. Some think Clinton was friendlier than Bush, and some that Bush is better for Israel than Clinton.

3. The numbers you see reflect an average, calculated by an experienced statistician. True, the first two ranking candidates ? Giuliani and Gingrich are Republicans, but out of the first five, two are Democrats. Why did Giuliani come first? Because he got good marks from both left-wing and right-wing panelists. Why did Gore come fifth? Because, generally, the more rightist panelists gave him lower marks (he got high enough marks from people of the left as to rank fifth over all).

4. The panelists take into account many things, as is reflected in their answers to the five questions we asked about the candidates (I got the feeling that many readers didn't bother to explore that far into the "Israel Factor"). As all of the panelists are experts, and all of them spent many years living and working in the U.S., one should not assume that they are ignorant about the parties or the candidates.

"This leads to the real question, what is 'good for Israel'?"

I agree, and suggest that you read my introduction to "The Israel Factor" (if you haven't done so already). This is part of what I wrote there: "By now, you are clearly asking yourselves the crucial question: how does one define 'friendly toward Israel.' For some, Bill Clinton's intense involvement in efforts to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement was evidence of his 'friendliness' towards Israel. For others, it was evidence of an over-meddling president trying to ram a dangerous agreement down the throats of Israelis.

What about Jewish settlements? Is a president who opposes settlement in the West Bank a friend or foe of Israel? Is a president who opposes dialogue between Jerusalem and Damascus serving Israel's best interests? What about a president who promotes democratization in the Middle East? Or a president who supports military action against Iran? Or, for that matter, one who opposes military action against Iran, preferring the diplomatic option? And what of a president who supports a future unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank?"

The rule of "The Israel Factor" is very simple in that regard: We ask the questions, the panel give the answers. Some will agree, some will not. Some might be offended, some will gloat. We hope that all will find it interesting and stimulating as to make them come back. This is the job of a newspaper. And that's why we do it.