Return of the Spies: Journalism as *Lashon Hara* and *Dibat HaAretz*

Stav Levaton’s piece in *The Times of Israel* published today isn’t just bad journalism—it is a textbook violation of the halachic prohibitions against *Lashon Hara* and *Dibat HaAretz*. By elevating unverified rumors and one-sided political grievances into a front-page headline, Levaton has essentially traded objective reporting for a public smear campaign against the very people protecting our communities.

Let’s call this what it is: *Motzi Shem Ra* (slander). The entire premise of the article leans on data from highly biased NGOs like *Yesh Din* and anecdotal complaints from local residents. There is zero cross-examination here. Instead of waiting for the IDF or police to actually conclude their investigations, the writer just accepts the gossip as absolute truth. Even worse, it takes isolated incidents and uses them to broadly demonize entire *Hagmar* units—local family men who left everything after October 7 to stand on the front lines. Smearing an entire collective based on unproven hearsay is a massive moral failure.

This is exactly the sin of the Spies (*Meraglim*) all over again. They brought back *Dibat HaAretz*—an evil, defaming report intended to weaken the nation’s resolve and slander the inhabitants of the Land. By broadcasting these unverified accusations on an international stage, Levaton is doing the exact same thing: giving global adversaries free ammunition to delegitimize the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.

For speech to be permissible under Jewish law, it has to serve a clear, constructive purpose (*To’elet*). This article does the opposite. It doesn’t look for truth or standard legal accountability; it uses weaponized language (“terrorizing,” “extremists”) just to stoke internal division and feed a narrative to Israel’s detractors. Our defenders deserve rigorous legal due process, not a public lynching in the press.