{"id":1473535,"date":"2024-01-31T06:59:45","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T06:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=312004"},"modified":"2024-01-31T06:59:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T06:59:45","slug":"meet-the-washington-posts-leading-apologist-for-israeli-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/01\/31\/meet-the-washington-posts-leading-apologist-for-israeli-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Washington Post\u2019s Leading Apologist for Israeli Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
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Photograph Source: Lance Cheung, U.S. Department of Agriculture – CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Ruth Marcus is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor for the Washington Post, and a regular oped writer for the paper.\u00a0 Marcus is an attorney, who decided to remain in journalism rather than practice law.\u00a0 She identifies herself ideologically and politically as a liberal and as a Zionist.\u00a0 In her most recent oped (\u201cU.N. court\u2019s ruling on Israel and Gaza is a perversion of justice\u201d) she referred to herself as a \u201cproud Jew,\u201d who was no supporter of the \u201cIsraeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox and settler allies.\u201d\u00a0 Her oped, however, is an apology for Israel that accepts virtually every Israeli argument against accusations of genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Marcus falsely argues that Israel has \u201ctaken extraordinary steps to prevent civilian casualties and otherwise mitigate the suffering of innocents.\u201d The facts on the ground argue the opposite. \u00a0More than 70 percent of Gaza\u2019s homes have been destroyed and more than half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. \u00a0Much of the water, electrical communications and health care infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair. \u00a0Only a handful of Gaza\u2019s 38 hospitals can accept patients. \u00a0Two-thirds of Gaza\u2019s school buildings have been damaged or destroyed, as have several churches and more than 100 mosques.<\/p>\n

The brutal bombardment that caused this destruction is consistent with the remarks of an Israeli military officer who warned recently that \u201cWhoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. \u00a0No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. \u00a0They have no future.\u201d Official Israeli statements and the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) demonstrate the intention to ensure that Gaza will never be habitable again. \u00a0Even worse, the Israelis have destroyed shelters, even those they have directed Palestinian civilians to occupy, and they have destroyed more than a dozen Gaza cemeteries.<\/p>\n

Marcus takes issue with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which charged that \u201csome of the acts\u2026committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the [Genocide] Convention.\u201d\u00a0 Marcus attacks the Court for focusing on \u201ca few statements by Israeli officials in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7\u201d that were consistent with genocidal intent.\u00a0 In fact, there are numerous examples of such statements at every level of Netanyahu\u2019s administration, the Israeli government, and an Israeli society that treat the Palestinians as less than human.\u00a0 This has been true for the past fifty years, starting with Prime Minister Golda Meir\u2019s dismissal of Palestinians as \u201croaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcus also claims there have been Israeli efforts to \u201cmitigate civilian harm by warning them through leaflets, radio messages and telephone calls of impending attacks,\u201d and its \u201cfacilitation of humanitarian assistance.\u201d\u00a0 Marcus couldn\u2019t be more wrong.\u00a0 What is particularly sinful is the Israeli efforts to cut off electricity, water, fuel and food to a trapped Palestinian population of 2.2 million, and to attack the very shelters that they have been told to occupy.\u00a0 The blockade itself is consistent with the war crime of collective punishment.<\/p>\n

Marcus\u2019s claims of Israeli warning is belied by a particularly savage attack in October, when the Israelis used 2,000-pound bombs that killed and wounded nearly 400 civilians in an effort to kill a senior Hamas commander.\u00a0 An Israeli spokesman acknowledged that no warning was given because \u201cthat would have allowed\u201d the commander to escape.\u00a0 The IDF killing of three Israeli hostages who were trying to escape Hamas demonstrated that the white flag of surrender and raised hands mean nothing to Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n

Marcus echoes the Israeli representative to the Court who claimed there was \u201cscant evidence\u201d of genocidal intent in comparison to the ICJ\u2019s finding regarding Myanmar\u2019s treatment of the Muslim Rohingya, which took two years of \u201cmeticulous collection of evidence.\u201d\u00a0 I would argue the opposite.\u00a0 It\u2019s our knowledge of Myanmar and the Rohingya, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Armenia that compel us to compare Israeli savagery.\u00a0 If we merely research and study the problem for the next two years, there may be no Gaza to examine and many more Palestinians who have been killed or placed in refugee camps that have existed since the original Israeli displacement of Palestinians 75 years ago.<\/p>\n

One of Marcus\u2019s most bizarre comments is that \u201cKilling civilians\u2026undermines [the interests] of Israel.\u201d\u00a0 If so, how does one explain the killing of so many innocent civilians and children.\u00a0 Even Marcus acknowledges that the Genocide Convention requires \u201cboth acts and intent.\u201d\u00a0 And the acts must cause \u201cserious bodily or mental harm,\u201d and the deliberate \u201cinflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.\u201d\u00a0 That is exactly what we have been witnessing on a daily basis for the past four months.<\/p>\n

The last line of Marcus\u2019s oped is particularly egregious.\u00a0 She argues that Israel is being treated differently for the same reason that \u201cnecessitated the existence of a Jewish state to begin with.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, she echoes the standard Israeli response that any criticism of Israel is simply another form of anti-semitism.\u00a0 Sadly, we are witnessing a text book case of genocide.<\/p>\n

The post Meet the Washington Post’s Leading Apologist for Israeli Genocide<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruth Marcus is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor for the Washington Post, and a regular oped writer for the paper.\u00a0 Marcus is an attorney, who decided to remain in journalism rather than practice law.\u00a0 She identifies herself ideologically and politically as a liberal and as a Zionist.\u00a0 In her most recent oped (\u201cU.N. court\u2019s ruling on Israel and Gaza is a perversion of justice\u201d) she referred to herself as a \u201cproud Jew,\u201d who was no supporter of the \u201cIsraeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox and settler allies.\u201d\u00a0 Her oped, however, is an apology for Israel that accepts virtually every Israeli argument against accusations of genocide in Gaza. More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Meet the Washington Post\u2019s Leading Apologist for Israeli Genocide<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473535"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1475360,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473535\/revisions\/1475360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1473535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}