Haaretz publisher Amos Shocken clashed with the bereaved family of an Israeli soldier killed in the Gaza Strip in 2014 on Twitter Thursday over an offensive column that ran in his paper. The remains of Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed during Operation Protective Edge, are being held by Hamas. On Thursday, columnist Rogel Alpher, Haaretz's television critic, disparaged the soldier's brother Hemi Goldin and the family for their efforts on behalf of their deceased son. "Hemi is showing advanced symptoms of a situation that can be called the 'Goldin Syndrome,' after his brother, Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed in Operation Protective Edge and whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza. We're talking about cognitive dissonance that is characterized by the speaker ceasing to distinguish between the dead and the living and being furious that a dead person is not treated like someone who is alive," Alpher wrote. Alpher continued that "another aspect of 'Goldin Syndrome' is delusions of grandeur, which characterizes much of the Israeli 'family of bereavement.' The status of bereavement gives him, in his eyes, the authority and the privilege to determine the national agenda and priorities." In response to the column, Goldin's parents, Leah and Simcha Goldin, tweeted Shocken. "In your opinion, is it a 'delusion of grandeur' to want a proper burial for our son-" they asked him. Shocken replied laconically: "Absolutely." Twitter users expressed surprise at the publisher's response, and the social media backlash prompted Shocken to delete the tweet. "I deleted the tweet, which really was nuts, and which I wrote without having read the question in its entirety. The desire to bring Hadar and [fellow slain soldier Staff Sgt.] Oron [Shaul] to Israel for Jewish burial is utterly justified, and I support it," Shocken wrote. The Goldin family was not satisfied and continued to tweet: "If Hadar were Palestinian, [Haaretz columnists] Amira Hass and Gideon Levy would be fighting in the newspaper's pages to return his body for burial."
