[2] Richard Silverstein, the blog's creator, is a full-time blogger[3] who describes himself as a "progressive (critical) Zionist" who supports an "Israeli withdrawal to pre-67 borders and an internationally guaranteed peace agreement with the Palestinians".
[4] He often interviews on Iranian Press TV and has contributed essays to Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Jewish Daily Forward, the Los Angeles Times, Tikkun, Truthout, The American Conservative, Middle East Eye and Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
[11] Silverstein has used controversial, racially derogatory language; he referred insultingly to Chloé Valdary, an African-American woman who supports Israel, on his Facebook page: "They finally did it: found a Negro Zionist: Uncle Tom is dancing for joy!
"[12] At its inception in 2003, the blog did not focus exclusively on Israel; it included articles about the Seattle restaurant scene, world music, and Silverstein's native Hudson Valley.
[15]Tikun Olam reported on the arrest of prominent Israeli Palestinian political activists Ameer Makhoul and Omar Said by the Shin Bet, who accused them of spying against Israel on behalf of Hezbollah.
In 2011, Silverstein was one of the first to report that Gaza civil engineer, Dirar Abu Sisi, had been kidnapped by the Mossad in Ukraine, brought to Israel and imprisoned for allegedly being the mastermind behind Hamas' rocket program.
According to The New York Times, Silverstein then asserted that his source apparently was part of “a ruse designed to throw the media off the scent of the real story.”[25] On August 15, 2012, a Tikun Olam blog entry entitled "Bibi’s Secret War Plan"[26] centered around a "scoop"—a document purporting to outline plans for a secret Israeli attack against Iran.
Silverstein claimed to have received the "secret" document from an Israel Defense Forces officer to “expose the arguments and plans advanced by the Bibi-Barak two-headed warrior”.
The blog post was picked up by several mainstream media outlets, including the BBC, until Maariv exposed it as plagiarism of an imaginary scenario of an article that had been published several days earlier on the Israeli online forum “Fresh”.
[27][28] It was written by veteran Fresh contributor “Sirpad,” who clearly stated that it was “based on foreign and non-classified sources and on the author’s own imagination.”[29][30] Silverstein denied having ever visited the website in question, but the website's administrators refuted this in a statement they released on the site, which said Silverstein had a registered account on the site and had made twelve posts there, the last one of which was deleted and resulted in a six-month suspension of his account for publishing classified information.
[32] In February 2014, Silverstein published the names of two Israeli arms dealers who, he said, were involved in illicitly exporting military equipment to Iran via Greece.
[35] In March 2016, the story of Chaim Shacham, an Israeli diplomat who was suspended amid child abuse allegations, was first reported in Tikun Olam.
[37] The Jewish Daily Forward reporter Nathan Guttman writes that Silverstein "has become a prime address for Israelis seeking to bypass their country’s censorship or court gag orders...
"[3] The pro-Israel group CAMERA characterizes Silverstein as a "radical, anti-Israel blogger who repeatedly defends Hamas while blaming the Israeli government, and who promotes Israel as a single state of all its citizens."
[3] Yossi Melman, a veteran security and intelligence reporter for Haaretz, argues that Silverstein "spreads rumors without checking them" and "is an ideologue, not a journalist."
In the past he supported the establishment of one state as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, called IDF soldiers "subhuman", compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and revealed the name and address of a Zionist blogger to the point of risking his life.
Faced with social media and the instantaneous transmission of information, the system, designed to function on the basis of a "gentleman's agreement" with a few established publishers, has reached its limits.