I have never before seriously considered suing a newspaper for libel, but I am now, prompted by this piece of filth: “Israeli Speakers to Join Orban, Global Right in Major Conservative Summit in Hungary.”

I have never heard of Jonathan Shamir, but based on this article I can only conclude he is a character assassin. I suppose whether or not I am “extreme” is a matter of opinion, but whether the United States’ pre-World War II America First Committee was a “fascist pressure group” is a checkable assertion of fact. Which is wrong. The America First Committee was a group that held the defensible position that the United States, after having entered the First World War and lost 116,000 citizens, nearly all of them young men, to dubious utility to the national interest, should not enter the Second. One may disagree with that opinion, but most Americans agreed with it until the attack on Pearl Harbor radically transformed American public opinion.

As for my piece about George Soros, Shamir cites no sources and provides only one link—to another Haaretz article defending George Soros. I assume Shamir is referring to (if he even knows about it and is not just casually tossing out libelous charges, which is more likely) a piece published in The American Mind in 2020. Every claim I made in that piece is similarly an assertion of fact, sourced to reporting in the American “mainstream” (i.e., leftist state-aligned) media. It has become standard practice for the American left to declare Soros a secular deity who cannot be criticized and to hurl the charge of antisemitism at anyone who dares question how Soros directs his political spending. I see now that this is standard practice for the Israeli Left as well.

I admit to being angered at reading this description of me in the Israeli press. I have been a supporter of Israel since I was in college during the First Gulf War, when Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on your country. Wondering why this was happening, I headed to the library and read up on your history. I supported Israel through two stints (totaling almost six years) at the American National Security Council, where I was not without influence over American foreign policy. And I have visited twice, both times awed by the history and warmed by the hospitality. So to receive this kind of treatment from an Israeli institution like Haaretz infuriates me.

But it has been explained to me by friends more familiar with your country and its media that Haaretz is no different than our state-aligned media: thoroughly leftist, dedicated to propaganda rather than reporting, and committed to using libel and character assassination to further its ends.

To Shamir I add: say it to my face. And to editor Esther Solomon, who I see compounded the libel on Twitter: you should be ashamed of yourself. I know you aren’t, which speaks volumes about you, but you should be.

Most sincerely,

Michael Anton