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.
To be sure, it is rare for any newspaper ombudsman to call for the termination of a writer. Usually, a withering criticism like the one Pexton published about Rubin would be followed by swift punitive action by the editorial board. At least, that is what would happen inside a decent newsroom where mass murder and hate speech is frowned upon. However, when he was queried by Politico's Ben Smith about Rubin's endorsement of Abrams' genocidal rant, Washington Post op-ed page editor Fred Hiatt rushed to his columnist's defense.
"I think Jennifer is an excellent journalist and a relentless reporter," Hiatt declared. "I think because she has strong views, and because she is as willing to take on her home team, as it were, as the visitors, she comes under more scrutiny than many and is often the target of unjustified criticism. I think she brings enormous value to the Post."
Leaving aside the fact that Rubin's stated support for mass murdering Palestinians did not seem to trouble Hiatt at all, there are a number of problems with his statement. First of all, Rubin is not a journalist or a reporter, and she never has been. Before Hiatt hired her to blog for the Post, she was a former lawyer who churned out opinion pieces and blog posts expressing stock neoconservative views for movement outlets like the Weekly Standard and Commentary.
Further, Hiatt's reference to "the home team" and "the visitors" was confusing. Presumably he was alluding to conservatives and liberals, since Rubin often criticizes the Republican opponents of Mitt Romney (Romney is the most pliant marionette the neocons could find among the Republican primary field). But Rubin's real home team is not the conservative movement or the Republican Party. Her team is called "Judea and Samaria," and it is comprised of visitors from Brooklyn who intend to displace as many indigenous Palestinians as they can. Contrary to Hiatt's claim, Rubin is coming under scrutiny for being an advocate of violence and ethnic eliminationism, not for being fiercely independent.
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.
Imagine the endorsement by a WaPo writer to kill Israelis in their beds, or black Americans in the South, and then imagine the WaPo blithely telling us it is ‘robust’ opinion, part of the right wing spectrum of views. And he thinks the paper has credibility?
it is hard to imagine how anyone could hold a shred of credibility for the wapo this being just more of the same… this will be the same paper that will be pounding endlessly for a war on iran too… sometimes folks need to be hit with a ton of bricks in order to wake up… this is just one more for the pile..
Pro-Israel militants like Jennifer Rubin and the rest of her neoconservative compatriots represent an alien and radical new strain in American politics that stands in stark opposition to all traditional American values, both conservative and liberal.
They may well succeed in utterly destroying the American democratic experiment and ruining the American economy. The Washington Post is totally in bed with these people. Apparently they *are* these people. The Washington Post is no longer a standard bearer of traditional American liberal values. It is now a crude Jaobotinskyite propaganda outlet for promoters of genocidal rhetoric and policies.
“When people sleep in a democracy, they wake up in a tyranny.”
Majority of people are still sleeping, those who are waking up , do not like,
at all ,the monster that they are seeing.”
You hit it right on the head. When I saw Rubin’s reply to these allegations where she stated that Abrams’ post was an “understandable desire for righteous vengeance” I thought exactly the same thing. Where and when in the world of American politics would we ever hear the phrase “righteous vengeance” used by a politician or journalist? This is a country founded on enlightenment values of universal rights and freedoms, not some theocracy that pronounces vengeance on others.
People like Rubin sound far more theocratic, vengeful and inhuman than any Iranian official. Would you want her in power in a nuclear state? Perhaps they should apply their carefully selective principles to destabilising, warmongering propagandists wherever they are, and start threatening her and her like.
pronouncing vengeance
Not to mention, the God they claim to revere forbade it: I will repay, saith the Lord.
Your view of the foundations of the US seem delusional to me, but you are correct as regards theory (certainly not practice). What enlightenment values? Clearly not ‘sapere aude’, or anything remotely resembling a critical and self-critical attitude to the foundational myth of the ‘land of the free’. At the collective level, the ‘pursuit of happiness’ has never been anything but the pursuit of wealth – be it land, resources, money or imperialism — and “righteous vengeance” has been inflicted with great regularity on anyone who resisted – from King George to the GWOT.
No other country in the world has such a massive chip on its shoulder, shared by so many of its citizens, and has so successfully drowned out any remorse about the damage done to other peoples, both on the continent and around the globe, by a relentlessly enforced amnesia, patriotism and jingoism. Everything about the US is extreme – extreme nationalism, extreme religion, extreme violence (domestic and abroad), extreme gun and tax laws, extreme wealth (and poverty), extreme racism, extreme number of prisoners (mostly non-white), extreme politics and arrogance. Even the extreme liberal left is extreme in advocating ‘American values’ and equal human right, and, of course, the Nuremberg principles (unilateral blame and selective punishment, victor’s justice) as something that should be imposed on all countries around the globe, including Israel. What exactly are ‘American values’, and how is Israel NOT implementing them?
The insane and hypocritical doctrine of perpetual/democratic peace has led to nothing but perpetual war, hot and cold, outside US borders. Perpetual peace is a concept going back to Enlightenment philosopher Kant, who has no doubt been spinning in his grave since the Americans put their thinly veiled Machiavellian version of the idea that the people never want war, hence republics/democracies are more peaceful, into practice. At least the Nazis were honest enough to not pretend they were democrats and liberators. Israelis are more honest than Americans. Compare the Israeli and American Lieberman.
As for Rubin, she’s perfectly American, as is Harmony Grant, a writer for National Prayer Network, fed up with the subversion of majority rights by Liberals and the ADL promotion of anti-hate legislation:
“Recently in my ultra-liberal city of Portland, I found myself driving behind a car with just one bumper sticker. “So many Christians,” it read, “So few lions.” I wondered what could possess a person to adorn their car with this one homicidal sentiment—and then possess my community to let them drive around, unaccosted. A friend and I discussed later what other slogans might be put on a bumper sticker.
What if it said “So many Jews, so few gas chambers”? It could read, “So many blacks, so few nooses.” Or “So many Muslims, so few Abu Ghraibs.” How long would it take for a car with that sticker to be pulled over? Twenty minutes?
The double standard is evident everywhere. [...] What really empowers rampant anti-Christianity? So few Christians who will put lions in their cages.”
http://www.israelshamir.net/shamirReaders/english/Grant–Christians-And-Lions.php
Point takenm double standard effectively exposed. How about: ‘So many Americans, so few suicidal terrorists who fly planes into the WTC and Pentagon? ‘ Off to Gitmo, or just shoot the prime suspects and drop them into the sea. All Americans would agree, including Rubin and Grant. No other lions to be caged?
Sean McBride’s view that Israel is opposed to ‘all traditional American values, both conservative and liberal’ is not quite right. Large areas of the USA were founded by ethnic cleansing, just like Israel. The difference is that the USA, like all Western countries except Israel, has changed.
That is why the anti-Christian, anti-Western attitudes which exist in the left are no use in opposing Zionism, and that is why, though apartheid and segregation have been abolished, Zionism continues, stronger than ever. It’s not white supremacy, it’s not imperialism, it’s not in the interests of capitalism – it’s not among the things leftism is good at targeting. It’s quite different, and has to be criticized for its own specific faults. The point is to make the rest of the Western population realize how different they are, how much more advanced they are than the defenders of Israel. It shouldn’t be that difficult, given the open expression of racial hatred by powerful Jews in the media (see above), and the complete absence of such views among Americans generally.
The traditional left/liberal/radical approach (summarized amusingly by the bumper sticker about Christians and lions) has been completely ineffective against Zionism. Something new is needed.
“It’s not white supremacy, it’s not imperialism, it’s not in the interests of capitalism – it’s not among the things leftism is good at targeting.”
It’s a monstrous supremacism which currently manifests itself in unabashed racism against both the Muslim religion and Arab culture (and a more subtle notion of superiority regarding any other goyim).
I would think leftism would be pretty good at handling that.
Not at all, Dan. Israel appears to be more racist against Arabs and less so against other goys because it happens to be located in Palestine. There were proposals to put it somewhere else. The Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed, not because they are Palestinians, but because they are not Jewish. Jewish supremacy is against all non-Jews, and that is the key to defeating it – explaining to everyone else that it is against their interests.
The left, by amalgamating Jewish racism (against everyone) with almost-extinct European racism (against Arabs, black people and so on) misses the boat completely, and makes it look as if Westerners in general have more in common with Jewish supremacists than they really do. Israel is overtly Christophobic as well as Islamophobic, and the left don’t say that. That’s what needs to be said to defeat Zionist power.
My boot has it’s own mind, comparable in substance to Rubin’s – and boy is it itching for “righteous vengeance” too!
I know, taxi, but “righteous vengeance” is barbaric, tribalist lex talionis. Get over it. Which Western country is the last to have a death penalty? Most Americans on death row are not white. “So many blacks, so few nooses” would of course be unacceptable as a bumper sticker. And let’s get all worked up about racism in Israel as a unique evil the US has long overcome. As if the WOT had not produced a lot more Arab/Muslim victims? Deflection has always been a national sport in the US. Tail wags dog is just one of those deflection strategies. Sure, the Lobby is huge and hugely annoying. Sure they wield enormous political and financial power. The Lobby is, however, only a symptom, not the disease. Since I’m alway beaten up here by Blankfort for channeling Chomsky, let’s see what paleoconservative Gottfried has to say:
“I disagree with those paleos and libertarians who imagine that the U.S. is always ready for war because of the Israeli lobby. We are ready for war because of the Wilsonian ideology that has gripped this country. Wilsonian imperialism is now one of the few moral glues that keep the “American people” together. It is the foreign policy extension of the aggressive multiculturalism practiced at home.
In my view, it is ludicrous to believe the problem will go away as soon as AIPAC grows weaker. Although American Zionists, particularly the neocons, can be socially obnoxious, by themselves they have not produced the ideological and imperialistic side of American politics. As my Swedish friend Claes Ryn shows in his book “America the Virtuous,” global democratism did not start with the neoconservatives. It has been around and viewed as a foreign policy option for at least a century.
There are obviously those who believe that all our foreign policy problems stem from Ariel Sharon and that if only we can get the Israelis to make further concessions in the “peace process,” we can then cut back on our military expenses. With some luck we may never hear about “global democracy” once the Israelis start taking back Palestinian refugees.
Needless to say, I share neither the trust of such people in the Arabs nor their optimism about the possibility of being rid of the Jacobins and Trotskyists. What may drive some of them is a justified but misguided hatred for the antics and mendacity of American Zionists. But as I’ve already explained, Sharon is not responsible for Foxman, Peretz, or Dershowitz.”
link to archive.newsmax.com
Arabs/Muslims are no more or less violent and prone to take revenge than Christians and Jews. They have every reason to be pissed off at Israel, the US, and Israel’s friends in Europe, where Iranophobia is regularly cited as the rationale for sanctions and opposition to the Iranian nuclear program. With the possible exception of the Germans, who were forced and brainwashed into it by massive ‘re-education’ efforts, and who are still locking up anyone who strongly disagrees with the official history of WW II (there are more political prisoners in Germany now than there ever were in East Germany), I know of no people who say: “we deserved it” when revenge comes. Compare 9/11 to the insane revenge taken on the Germans after WW I and II and tell me who screamed the loudest, and with more justification.
Antidote,
I used “righteous vengeance” in quotes deary. So like get over yourself now AND next time!
If I understand the convoluted intent of your post correctly, you’re advertising a kinda peace with no dignity and you’re objecting to a war with dignity.
Personally, I don’t really care what you think – I will answer in like any “barbaric” racist language whatever the religion or political tilt of the offender!
I don’t mind a mud fight with racists in the slightest – my sleeves are permanently rolled, my goggles come with windshield wipers :-)
And always, I’m warning ya: I’m sweet to the sweet.
I believe that is the point. The neoconservatives are not Americans. Their purpose is to destroy the USA. They seem to be mostly psychopathic and several have ties to neo-Soviet international groups. Breivik had ties to these same groups and shared identical beliefs (ex – trained in Belarus with what remains of KGB). Peter Beter used to (laughably at the time) say the US lost the cold war and the neocons were Bolsheviks. This was long before ‘neo-conservative’ was in common usage. Much of the neocons are just weak-minded suckers. Useful idiots suckered in to doing the work for the real powers that be. It is a real conspiracy, not a theory but a fact. Even if what I wrote above is wrong, something isn’t right and the neocons are mostly to blame. These people should be in prisons, not in government positions or journalist positions for ‘respected’ publications. Hey Americans, how did we let this happen? Why aren’t we stopping it?
These pack hunters are promoting subversion while gaining control to the levers of power. They love the US and will seek to extract as much out of it as possible. In the US there is a lot of food still on the table, and they are hungry for more.
Neoconservatism seems to have sprung from a merger of the worst strains of Bolshevism and Nazism, from both left-wing and right-wing 20th century Russian and European totalitarianism. And that is why neoconservatism feels like a radically alien strain in American politics and culture that is totally out of sync with both traditional conservatism and liberalism. If these neocon zealots get their way, they will succeed in constructing a police state much more oppressive and sinister than anything dreamed of by the Stalinist and Nazi regimes. They need to be opposed and stopped by mainstream Americans.
The privatization of the American Armed Forces was a huge factor in encouraging neoconservatism. War now has a big business constituency, who profit enormously, no matter what the outcome or cost to America, as long as there is a war. And is pretty much exempt from regulation and above the law.
The bases built during the War on Iraq, and now deserted, provides some of the most flagrant examples, but the trend toward privatization, and thus the big push to make war a recognised and accepted industry, started with Reagen.
NEOCONSERVATIVES ARE NOT AMERICANS
yes, thank you. this will make a great bumper sticker.
The malicious rant from Abrams and other fellows show us how perverse Likud power is, as it lurks beneath the surface of journalism.
The internet will drag these trolls out into the sunlight one day. We all know they need the light to disinfect their spirits.
“Balance”. Another useless try to describe politics on a Liberal-Conservative scale, detailed with Teapartists and Republicans pinned at the proper position — while everyone knows that Zionism and its vomit spread everywhere, perpendicular to the Left-Right scale.
Now this is before talking about the WaPo’s devision in “Left leaning” and “Right leaning” columnists, which in itself is paternalistic to every reader who is able to read.
If Goebbels were alive today, he would definately hire Jennifer Rubin as his spokesperson.
Along with “bloody” Rachel.
When the Washington Post hires liberals, that will be breaking news.
What is unmanned supposed to mean?Nobody at the helm?Unmanly?And those who really use children as fodder are obviously the Israelis using Palestinian children as legitimate targets for their overwhelming military superiority.
And why are the most militarized societies the most insecure?
I’m curious as to what oligarchs are funding these traitorous publications,because I guarantee thousands of subscribers have quit on these obvious liars(NYT and WAPO).
“And why are the most militarized societies the most insecure?”
Otherwise you can’t justify the spending. 1 in 4 Israelis lives in extreme poverty. 50 million Americans have no health insurance. Where does all the money go?
Hat tip to the media for making all of this possible.
Japan was exactly the same in the 1930s and 40s.
I think that “unmanned” was supposed to mean “deprived of male company because their vile significant others who were hiding behind their burqas made suicide attacks or something because they were cowards”.
Apart from anything else, it was a highly incoherent rant. Goebels would be offended. I think that one should demand a certain level of craft from a person who runs a blogs while occupying a position of vice-something of a prestigious Zionist astroturf outfit.
I was totally taken aback by a call to throw the terrorists to the sea to be consumed by stargazers (and sharks which are less inappropriate). I tried to search and I found that there is a song “Stargazer” from “Tea Party” record, but this was not that tea party and the stargazer of the song was actually gazing at stars, giving no sign to her lover what was she thinking about (and no signs of craving to eat a piece of a terrorist). There are also stargazer fish, smallish shy creatures hiding in bottom sediments.
In short, Mrs. Abrams made an impression of being a vicious airhead.
To be ‘unmanned’ is to have your penis removed, usually done with an axe, sword or – these days – an explosive projectile. The removal of the balls are optional, if you only lose those you’re just a eunuch or a castrate.
Hmm, what a thing to comment on as my second comment on this board… :)
Unless Mrs. Abrams botched the grammar too, the “unmanned” sentence was about women of Gaza, so your interpretation is questionable. One reason that it is hard to see that posting as a call to a highly organized activity that is genocide.
dahoit, I’m pretty sure that “unmanned” means “not human, zombie-like”. Like a drone.
thanks max, great article. keep on their asses.
RE: “I think because she has strong views, and because she is as willing to take on her home team, as it were, as the visitors, she comes under more scrutiny than many…” ~ Fred Hiatt
MY COMMENT: Fred Hiatt is a seriously warped, self-hating Jew!
JENNIFER RUBIN TAKES ON HER “HOME TEAM”: Inside CUFI’s 2011 Washington “Summit”, Special to JewsOnFirst.org, 07/29/11
Our eyewitness report on Christians United For Israel’s annual Washington conference
ENTIRE REPORT – link to jewsonfirst.org
RE: Fred Hiatt and Jennifer Rubin
YET ANOTHER MID-AUTUMN AFTERNOON’S MUSICAL INTERLUDE, proudly brought to you by the makers of new Ziocaine Xtreme®:
John Lennon: “Crippled Inside” (VIDEO, 03:56) – link to youtube.com
RE: “Rubin’s real home team…is called ‘Judea and Samaria,’ and it is comprised of visitors from Brooklyn who intend to displace as many indigenous Palestinians as they can.” ~ Max Blumenthal
MY COMMENT: Hey white North Americans making Aliyah! Check out Anglo-Saxon Real Estate’s handy, dandy map of Israel (from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River) to see where in the Realm of Eretz Yisrael you would like to buy your dream home! Second homes, vacation homes, investment homes, and retirement homes are also available for qualified White buyers. Buy a house from a Coloured seller (on your own), and then we’ll help you “flip it” to a White buyer for a HUGE PROFIT! Israel does apartheid right!™
Anglo – Saxon Netanya — link to anglonetanya.com
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Looking for an apartment or a house in throughout Israel? Anglo-Saxon Have A Foothold In Israel – link to anglo-saxon.co.il
the breadth and depth of the israeli lobby’s reach is such that you can openly call for genocide and espouse vulgar racist views and it is allowed – disgusting and another shameful page in this awful chapter that is israel Likkudnik control of our political process
This is a BLOOD LIBEL, all you anti-Semites.
BLOOD LIBEL
BLOOD LIBEL
BLOOD LIBEL
This is why Jews need a Jewish state, to protect them from such venomous, hateful, nazi, Holocaust-denying anti-Semitism.
Am Yisrael Chai
Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael Chai.
\Sarcasm
good point Avi…
There must be more we can do to expose these vile “journalists” to all Americans, if only to roust them from slumber…
What do you think about the claim that in her original quote, Rubin was just talking about the released prisoners in the Shalit exchange, rather than all Palestinians? Would you be able to comment on the original quote in context? Thanks.
Second, what about this claim that Breivk was trained in the former USSR. I am confused- I thought the former USSR and China are in favor of the Palestinians’ independence. Maybe this was a ruse?
You just flunked first grade.
Justice W.P.,
The original blog post said to celebrate Shalit’s release and “Then round up his captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages… [thereupon follows a rant full of very bad stereotypes and says to do very bad things to them]”
My point is that it seems to me when reading this is that she was talking about the captors, not necessarily the Palestinians in general.
Now it’s true that her writing was full of extreme stereotypes. And it’s also important to note that the captors kept Shalit alive and returned them, but she is saying to do war crimes to them in return.
So I would agree that her post is offensive- with stereotypes and incitement- but it still looks like she was aiming them against the captors who, admittedly, treated Shalit better than some Palestinians are treated, and far better than she says to treat the captors.