The Washington Post (1/3/25) argued that “serious accountability is possible” in Israel—by which it meant that Ariel Sharon once had to change his cabinet job after he let thousands of civilians be murdered.
In two instances in the past couple of weeks, the Washington Post has acknowledged criticisms made by FAIR activists and others. Post editors may not be backing down, but they are hearing you.
The first response was a Washington Post editorial (1/3/25) headlined “Readers Disagreed With Us on Israel and the ICC. Here’s Our Response.” This was an attempt to defend an earlier Post editorial, “The International Criminal Court Is Not the Venue to Hold Israel to Account” (11/24/24), which had been the subject of a FAIR Action Alert (11/26/24) and widespread criticism elsewhere (e.g., X, 11/25/24).
The centerpiece of the Post‘s defense of its editorial that said the ICC should not hold Israeli leaders responsible for war crimes was its claim that “serious accountability is possible, even probable,” from Israel’s own institutions.
Oddly, the evidence the paper offered for this was that after the IDF allowed right-wing Lebanese militias to slaughter thousands of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee in 1982, Israel formed a commission to investigate the mass murder, and as a result, then–Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was made to resign from his post. This outcome was widely viewed as “show[ing] Israelis were willing to hold their top leaders to account,” the Post wrote.
The Post did not note that while stepping down as Defense minister, Sharon remained in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio, held one cabinet ministry after another throughout most of the 1980s and ’90s, and became prime minister of Israel from 2001–06. If that’s the Post‘s best example of Israelis “hold[ing] their top leaders to account,” hopes that anyone will face real justice in Israel for the war crimes against Gaza are very slim.
‘Extra careful…when it comes to our owner’
One of a dozen cartoons (Greater Quiet, 1/7/25) drawn in solidarity with the muzzled Ann Telnaes—this one by Ted Littleford of the New Haven Independent.
Post editorial page editor David Shipley made another retort to a criticism in a FAIR Action Alert (1/7/25) in an internal memo published by the media news site Status (1/10/25). Along with many others (e.g., Pennsylvania Capital-Star, 1/10/25), FAIR had criticized Shipley and the Post for killing a cartoon that lampooned billionaire Post owner Jeff Bezos’ obsequious relationship with Donald Trump, leading to the resignation of cartoonist Ann Telnaes.
FAIR’s Pete Tucker said it was “bizarre” for Shipley (New York Times, 1/3/25) to claim that he spiked Telnaes’ cartoon because an earlier column mentioned in passing Bezos dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Shipley claimed that his only bias was “against repetition”—as if the Post, like other papers, doesn’t routinely run cartoons on topics that columnists are also writing about. FAIR cited examples from recent weeks of Post cartoons that echoed Post columns.
In his memo, Shipley seemed to acknowledge this line of criticism: “It’s obviously true that we have published other pieces that are redundant and duplicative.” He admitted that he was being “extra careful,” and that his “scrutiny is on high when it comes to our owner.”
He defended this approach as necessary “to ensure the overall independence of our report.” By “exercising care” in coverage of their owner, “we preserve the ability to do what we are in business to do: to speak forthrightly and without fear about things that matter.”
In other words, if the Post doesn’t watch how it talks about Bezos, he might stop subsidizing it to the tune of 0.04% of his net worth annually—and then the paper won’t be able to talk “about things that matter.”
As if anything matters more than the nation’s most powerful oligarchs forming an alliance with Trump.
This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Jim Naureckas.
Jim Naureckas | Radio Free (2025-01-15T20:59:56+00:00) ACTIVISM UPDATE: Responses Show WaPo Is Hearing From Its Critics . Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/01/15/activism-update-responses-show-wapo-is-hearing-from-its-critics/
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