Far-left, anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker attends the press conference during day three of Web Summit Qatar 2026 at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 3, 2026. Photo: Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

Haaretz is ready for the backlash. And this time, it has no better reason than its decision to platform the radical and anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker.

In what Ha’aretz referred to as Piker’s “first interview with Israeli media,” the political commentator and influencer doubled down on his antisemitic remarks and went further still, claiming to explain “why most Americans just don’t like Israel anymore.”

But Ha’aretz presenting itself as being representative of Israeli media is about as honest as Piker presenting himself as representative of Americans.

For a streamer who has previously called Orthodox Jews “inbred” and claimed that Hamas is better than Israel, Ha’aretz‘s willingness to indulge Piker’s antisemitic rhetoric only shows just how far it has drifted from the broader Israeli consensus.

Piker has been previously platformed by The New York Times and GQ. His interviews and streaming sessions have worked their way into mainstream political discourse, despite his appalling record.

But Ha’aretz is not The New York Times or GQ. It presents itself as a left-wing Israeli outlet, and its Israeli identity gives it a particular authority in Western media, where it is frequently cited as a window into the country itself. Even when it publishes articles claiming that killing children brings Israelis together, that Israelis “enjoy” violence, or that Israel is “no better than Hamas,” Ha’aretz is still routinely treated abroad as representative of Israeli society and Israeli journalism, despite occupying a far narrower space within Israeli and Jewish public opinion.

Ha’aretz‘s interview with Piker did not seriously scrutinize his views. Instead, it treated him as a legitimate political voice and allowed some of his most extreme claims to pass largely uncontested. If, as Ha’aretz itself suggests, Piker’s platform is where many viewers first encounter terms such as “anti-Zionism” and “settler colonialism,” challenges to Israel’s “right to exist,” and sympathetic explanations of what the paper calls “Palestinian militancy,” then the nature of that influence deserves a rigorous examination.

Yet the interview repeatedly softens the implications of what Piker says. Antisemitism becomes something that merely “grates on the ear,” while terrorism is recast in the sanitized language of “militancy.” When Piker argues that international law gives an occupied people “a right to militant resistance,” there is no serious challenge over what he means by “resistance,” where he draws the line at terrorism, or how that argument applies to attacks on civilians. When he describes Hamas as the “lesser evil” compared with Israel, the interviewer simply moves on.

Taken together, Ha’aretz‘s Israeli identity and Piker’s anti-Israel politics create a particularly distorted effect: Views far outside the Israeli consensus are presented through an Israeli outlet as though they belong comfortably within mainstream political discourse.

Ha’aretz frames Piker merely as the “boogeyman” that the Jewish-American world is afraid of. Piker is not an abstract figure but one who has entered the mainstream political framework, turning his extreme views into daily discourse, pumped out to his millions of viewers on his streaming platforms, in addition to his being platformed or welcomed by anti-Israel politicians such as Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, and Ilhan Omar.

His rhetoric isn’t merely “offensive,” but is extreme enough to have his Electronic Travel Authorization canceled by the UK in June 2026 because his presence in the country might not have been “conducive to the public good.”

When that rhetoric extends to arguing that any “Zionist tendency” should be treated the same as being a “rabid neo-Nazi,” this is no longer a matter of introducing readers to a provocative or unconventional political position.

Only when Piker equates Zionism with Nazism does Ha’aretz acknowledge the consequence of the comparison: branding someone a Nazi, including “liberal Zionists,” places them “outside the category of acceptable, normal people.” The implication is clear. The litmus test is Zionism itself, regardless of where someone sits on the political spectrum. And it is precisely on that question that Ha’aretz appears to find common ground with Piker.

Ha’aretz‘s record speaks for itself. It rarely reflects the views of mainstream Israeli society, yet its Israeli identity continues to give it unusual credibility abroad. Inviting one of the most aggressively anti-Zionist voices in American media to expand on precisely that rhetoric only underscores the distance between the paper and the society it is so often assumed to represent.

The irony is difficult to miss: an anti-Israel streamer is welcomed to articulate his hostility toward Zionism in the pages of an outlet whose Israeli identity is central to the authority it enjoys overseas.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.