Akiva Eldar (Hebrew: עקיבא אלדר born November 27, 1945) is an Israeli journalist and author, currently a chief political columnist and editorial writer for the liberal Israeli national daily Ha'aretz. His columns also appear regularly in the Ha'aretz-International Herald Tribune edition, as well as in the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun. He lectured at the School of Journalism in Tel Aviv University and is also a consultant at CBS News.
Eldar graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he majored in Economics, Political Science and Psychology. After that he served as spokesperson for former Mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek. Then he was reporter and editor at the Israeli Public Radio. Eldar has been with Ha'aretz since 1978, in 1983-1993 he was the diplomatic correspondent for Ha'aretz. In 1993-1996 he served as Ha'aretz United States Bureau Chief and Washington, D.C. correspondent, covering the peace process, Israel-United States relations, American issues and Israel-Diaspora relations. He was a special consultant to Abba Eban's PBS television documentaries on the history of Israel and the Oslo accords.
In October 2007 Akiva Eldar has won the annual Eliav-Sartawi award for Middle Eastern journalism, awarded by Search for Common Ground, an international conflict transformation organization, sharing it with Jordanian journalist Salameh Nematt.[1]
Nahum Barnea, winner of the Israel Prize, formulated the "Lynch test", which tests the consistency of Israeli journalists. According to Eldar, Barnea listed Eldar as one of several journalists "who could not bring themselves to criticize the Arabs even when two Israelis were savagely murdered by a mob in Ramallah", that their "support for the Palestinian position is absolute", and that "they have a mission."[2] Eldar, responded that "I admit to being guilty as charged. I am a journalist with a mission, and also no small amount of passion. Every Israeli with a conscience, in particular one who watches reality from up close on a daily basis, cannot write about the occupation from an objective observer's neutral point of view."[2] In a response op-ed, Calev Ben-David wrote that if Eldar is not empathetic of the Israelis' concerns, he will do little "to advance the Palestinian cause, as he merely preaches to the converted and makes his own conscience feel cleaner in the process."[3]
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Akiva Eldar is the co-author of the biography of Shimon Peres; he is also the co-author (with Prof. Idith Zertal) of book Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007 (Nation Books, 2007) ISBN 1-56858-370-2.
In 2010, Akiva won a Peace through Media Award at the sixth annual International Media Awards hosted by the International Council for Press and Broadcasting in London