Left-wing radio caller ordered to compensate rightist for on-air insult

A left-wing activist from Ramat Gan never dreamed that a comment he made on a radio chat show a year and a half ago would cost him NIS 40,000 in compensation fees, for insulting a right-wing activist.

Eli Barak, 57, music store employee by day and bus driver by night, has been arm-wrestling with right wingers on radio talk shows for years. In February 2008 he was listening to a program hosted by Shmuel Flatto-Sharon when listener Nissim Cohen came on the air.

"Cohen said the left should be sent to Guantanamo," Barak recalls. He simply had to respond.

"I called in and said he was a bum who didn't serve in the army. I heard him say three months earlier on an Army Radio show that he studied the Torah and did not serve in the army."

Cohen, of Bnei Brak, who did serve in the army and works for a living, sued Barak through the Human Rights Organization of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), an NGO dedicated to defending settlers' rights.

Last week Netanya Magistrate Court judge Erez Yakuel ordered Barak to compensate Cohen NIS 40,000 plus index linkage to the day the suit was filed, and send him a written apology. "The judge is also a religious man with a skullcap. I don't understand what I was fined NIS 40,000 for, he's [Cohen] just a parasite from Bnei Brak who nobody ever heard of. Cohen is persecuting me for political motives," says Barak.

"It was an ideological debate and this is an ideological victory," concedes Cohen. "A victory of the forces of light over darkness. Barak has no inhibitions. He used to harass me at night with calls and curses," says Cohen.

"There's a Zionist left that I respect, a left you can have a decent argument with. They have their own truth, they think that [by removing settlements] there will be peace. But some people think the end justifies the means. They live on self-hatred. It has nothing to do with anything Zionist or Jewish. Their soul is connected to the enemy. But I'm speaking in general terms," he said.

The court ruling shocked many participants in the left-versus-right wrangle on radio talk shows. The conversations are frequently accompanied by curses, mudslinging and personal insults.

Hezi Zur, 54, of Rishon Letzion, now intends to sue a right-wing activist who slandered him on the radio. "I never thought of doing it until now. I'm going to sue someone I don't know, who said on JoJo Abutbul's show on Israel Radio, that all of Rishon stinks from me and that I'm scum, because of something I said about Netanyahu. He gave a false name so that he wouldn't be sued, but I recorded him," Zur says.

"Every day people slander each other. Most of the slanderers are right-wingers. The Barak case is an exception. They said on the radio that Ehud Barak pays me to go on the air, that my children didn't go to the army. About five or six of them are conducting a campaign against me, including Nissim Cohen and that dog [that I'm suing], blast him," he said.

An obsessive radio listener, Zur listens to talk shows constantly, trying not to leave a right-wing statement unanswered.

"The Army Radio has a daily talk show, Israel Radio's Reshet Alef [radio station] on Sunday and Tuesday, Reshet Bet on Wednesday, [Natan] Zahavi's daily [103FM], Radio Kol Hai, and Flatto-Sharon on Friday," Zur says. "For example with the construction freeze, I want to say on the air that it should have been done a long time ago. The right wing is apparently masochistic and likes being screwed."

Arieh of Holon has been participating in talk shows since Yitzhak Rabin's murder. He calls himself an expert at irritating right-wingers. Following the fine imposed on Barak he is cautious. "Instead of speaking about specific people I will speak in general terms. There's that Nissim Cohen, a fanatic Kahane activist, just waiting for someone to say something personal so he can sue him. People like him have an intense hatred of the left. When I go on the air I annoy them, strike where it hurts, their leader. I humiliate Netanyahu, curse those fascist, neo-Nazi punks, the settlers' hilltop youth. That drives them crazy," he says.

The respective talk-show producers are tired of airing the same speakers again and again. The participants, who want to talk a lot, all the time, are forced to seek other outlets, such as talkbacks or Big Brother.

"I've been to two auditions," says Zur. "I told them people talk nonsense on those radio shows. I want to talk politics, to blast people. They took for me for a four-hour simulation with 16 other people. You wouldn't believe what morons were there. What ignorance. There's no one to talk to."