Bradley Burston (Hebrew: בראדלי בורסטון) is an American-born Israeli journalist. Burston is a columnist for Haaretz and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com.[1] He writes a blog called "A Special Place in Hell."
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Burston was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He was a member of the Labor Zionist youth movement Habonim. He graduated from University of California, Berkeley. In 1976, Burston immigrated to Israel and helped re-establish Kibbutz Gezer. He served as a combat medic in the Israel Defense Forces.[2] He studied medicine in Beersheba for two years before becoming a journalist. [3]He is married and has two children. He is a resident of Nataf.[4]
During the first Intifada, Burston served as Gaza correspondent for The Jerusalem Post. He was the Post's military correspondent during the Gulf War. Burston worked for Reuters in the 1990s, reporting on the Arab–Israeli peace process and Israeli politics. In 2000, he began working for Haaretz.[2]
In a Haaretz op-ed entitled "What does 'Death to Israel' mean to you?" Burston is critical of "progressives" who claim to support the inalienable rights of human beings over nationalism, but fail to see Israelis as people who also deserve "the freedom to live in safety and sovereignty." Failure to "summon up the same compassion and concern for unarmed combatants on both sides of a battle front" reveals the holes in their ideology. [5]
Burston has said that it is important to "criticize Israel when it deserves criticism...and strongly defend Israel when it deserves to be defended.”[6]
In an op-ed on the subject of boycotts against Israel, Burston writes: "As a supporter of the idea of a truly democratic Jewish state alongside an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, what I cannot accept is the idea that formally Muslim states are acceptable, where a Jewish state is not."[7]
In 2006, Search for Common Ground gave Burston its Eliav-Sartawi Award for Middle East Journalism.[8][9]