Newspapers around the world are hurting for a host of reasons related to rising costs and technological change. But in Israel, Ha’aretz has some particular challenges. Der Spiegel has an interesting piece that begins with this description of the art in Ha’aretz’s lobby:
There in the foyer hangs an open pig’s carcass, looking just as it would in a slaughterhouse. This one, however, is reproduced in pieces of candy — red ones for the muscles, and yellow for the innards. The building’s doorman is on hand to help interpret this installation. The sculpture, he says, is like the land of Israel itself: "Beautiful on the outside, rotten on the inside."
But the paper’s real challenge lies elsewhere:
The only problem is that actively advocating peace negotiations is a fairly unpopular position in Israel at the moment. Shortly after the end of the Six Day War in 1967, Haaretz was already promoting the return of the occupied territories in exchange for peace. With the 1994 Oslo Accords, majority Israeli opinion also began to swing in this direction. But the happy marriage between the newspaper and prevailing public opinion didn’t last long. With the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000 and the accompanying suicide attacks in Israeli cities, the land and "The Land" once again went their separate ways.
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