‘Barak is Heydrich; Margalit is Mephistoseles’

TV screaming matches: Good journalism or bad? Should interviewers cross the line from being assertive to in-your-face, to outright combative? Is that necessary sometimes when a politician deserves it?

Here is the video of Balad MK Jamal Zahalka and journalist Dan Margalit screaming at each other on Erev Hadash last Friday. Besides being a display of passion and venom from both sides, this exchange has done more for the ratings of Erev Hadash [A New Evening] than anything the producers have done in the past.

Zahalka compared Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of SS intelligence and the ‘Butcher of Prague’, when he said that Barak “listened to classical music and killed Palestinian children” – a reference to Heydrich’s penchant for classical music and mass murder. This in and of itself is incitement, associating a Jewish, Israeli minister of defense with Heydrich. But Margalit could have handled it better.

Zahalka came out looking good for his audience, marginalized, extremist Israeli Arabs. He probably won’t be prosecuted for his comments, and if he is, he’ll become even more popular. Margalit says the Heydrich comment is what set him off, and that had Zahalka just argued that Barak killed Palestinian children [without the Nazi reference] he would have not come after him so hard, would have not used the word “hutzpa” – which crosses journalistic boundaries. Margalit, in an interview Sunday, said he responded to Zahalka’s association of Barak with Heydrich ["Barak is not Heydrich"], adding that he would always respond to something like this every time it comes up.

Margalit also said Sunday that he didn’t respond to all the nasty things Zahalka said about him ["you are zero, a nobody, Mephisto, a court reporter"] but only responded when the former compared Barak to the notorious Nazi mass murderer. This comparison, and Zahalka is far from being the only one making it these days, touches raw nerves amongst Israelis. But can Margalit be forgiven for losing control of his journalistic show? Is he first an Israeli patriot, a Jew, or a journalist? Can he be one or the other independently? I’m not sure that’s possible, certainly not in Israel. Margalit says the first job of an Israeli, Jewish, fair journalist is not to hear that Ehud Barak is Reinhard Heydrich. He was defending Israel’s honor, Margalit told Israel Radio’s Yaron Dekel, adding that the word “patriot” was not a swearword. “I was a professional and patriotic journalist,” Margalit concluded.

Zahalka then took the argument from national-ideological to the personal when he moved his attack from Ehud Barak to Dan Margalit, accusing the veteran journalist of being being Mephisto [Mephistoseles], the demon in the Faust legend, and a court reporter.

And finally, when he was already off-set after being asked to leave, Zahalka swung the argument back to the national-ideological, by screaming from the exit that Channel 1 TV’s studios, in Ramat Aviv, were actually on a destroyed Palestinian village – Sheikh Munis – meaning that, according to the Arab MK, Israelis were illegitimately living here, working here, broadcasting here, etc etc. Margalit jumped right in, saying that Zahalka had unmasked himself, that here was his true agenda, to rid Palestine of Israelis and Jews.

The screaming match between Margalit and Zahalka, not so much a journalistic product of the regular high quality of Erev Hadash, but rather echoed similar bouts between Arab MKs and Rightist MKs in the Knesset – with the Arabs saying “those who came last can leave first”, and the right wing MKs saying the Arabs could find other homes in neighboring countries.