Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Washington Post to retain “conservative” blogger that endorses call for mass murder, genocide

From:
Pro-Israel blogger’s call for killing Palestinians earns rebuke from Wash Post ombudsman, clap on back from editorial editor

(Mondoweiss) -- by Max Blumenthal --

Yesterday the Washington Post ombudsman finally weighed in on neoconservative Post blogger Jennifer Rubin's endorsement of Rachel Abrams's murderous rant against Palestinians. Max Blumenthal had exposed Rubin's retweet endorsement in the first place, and pointed out that Octavia Nasr lost her job at CNN for tweets of a far less incendiary character. Here is an excerpt of Blumenthal's take on the Post's statements about the scandal:

[Washington Post ombudsman Patrick] Pexton asked Rubin if her re-tweet was simply an innocent gesture intended to direct her followers to a widely discussed piece of inflammatory writing, or if it was an explicit endorsement of Abrams' call for murdering Palestinians, whom she described as "unmanned animals" and "child-sacrificing savages." Rubin replied matter-of-factly that it was the latter: she supported Abrams' message. According to Pexton, "But in this case Rubin told me that she did agree with Abrams. Rubin said that she admires Abrams, has quoted her a lot, thinks she’s an excellent writer and endorsed the sentiment behind the Abrams blog post."

Though Pexton stopped short of calling for Rubin to be fired, he concluded that by endorsing what amounted to a call for mass murder, if not genocide, "Rubin did damage to The Post and the credibility that keeps it afloat."

Pexton (who has been compelled to protect Rubin before) added in Rubin's defense that "The Post needs conservative voices to balance its many liberal ones." However, Rubin is not seen by political conservatives as a standard bearer of their views. Erick Erickson, a prominent right-wing blogger, accurately characterized Rubin as "Likud rather than Republican." She described herself to Pexton simply as "a pro-Israel blogger." The only bumper sticker on her car reads: “JERUSALEM IS NOT A SETTLEMENT. It’s Israel’s Eternal And Undivided Capital.” Rubin is nothing more than a Greater Israel fanatic committed above all to the extremist colonies forcibly implanted in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Perhaps the only thing she shares with Tea Party-style conservatives like Erickson is the tendency to exalt American and Israeli violence against Muslims, or those they might call "child sacrificing savages."

So how does Rubin provide the Washington Post with "balance?" None of the paper's supposedly liberal columnists are willing to raise a peep in favor of Palestinian rights, and even if they were, they could face harsh reprisals for doing so.

Moreover, the Post op-ed page is dominated by neoconservatives and torture enthusiasts whose views on Israel-Palestine are practically identical to Rubin's. Instead of balancing out the "many liberal" voices at the Post, Rubin simply injects elements of vitriol and Jewish extremism into a droning chorus of ultra-Zionist cant...

If Rubin had brazenly supported a call for the mass killing of blacks, gays or Jews, the Washington Post would have probably become the target of a boycott campaign organized by a national coalition of civil rights groups. And if Hiatt leapt to her defense, the damage would have spread through the upper echelons of the paper, tainting him and everyone around him. But Rubin was promoting the killing of the Palestinian un-people...MORE...LINK

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