‘Washington Post’ Platforms Superficial ‘As a Jew’ Op-Ed on Israel & Gaza
The former Washington Post building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Peter Maass, a journalist and former senior editor at left-wing publication The Intercept, admits that his “Jewish identity was always a bit vague.” He is also not an expert on international law, military tactics, or even the Middle East in general.
However, none of this has stopped Maass from using his Jewish heritage and past experience covering the war in Bosnia in the 1990s as a platform to not only falsely accuse Israel of war crimes in the present day, but also to re-invent history in a recent op-ed for The Washington Post.
Titled “I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them,” Maass’s op-ed is rife with inappropriate analogies, context-free claims, and a heavy reliance on his “vague” Jewish identity — all in an effort to harm the image of Israel and to besmirch the Zionist movement in general.
Neither his Jewish identity nor experiences covering the Balkans & other conflicts qualify @maassp to pass judgment on Israel & accuse it of war crimes.
But that won’t stop @washingtonpost from blending “As a Jew” tokenism & superficial military analysis.
Full analysis
https://t.co/Udc6oHeu1A pic.twitter.com/z52FdtJeI8
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 10, 2024
Peter Maass’ Crooked Line Between Bosnia & Gaza
In 1992 and 1993, Peter Maass served as an on-the-ground journalist during the war in Bosnia, reporting on the war crimes and ethnic cleansing that had become central features of that conflict.
Over 30 years later, and 1,000 miles away, Maass appears certain that his experiences in Bosnia are relevant to an analysis of the current war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
However, while his reporting from Bosnia might have been laudable, his understanding of Gaza is superficial and amateurish.
Take, for example, his claim that Israel’s “grind through Gaza” — when it “bombs and shoots civilians, blocks food aid, attacks hospitals and cuts off water supplies” — reminds him of the war crimes that he witnessed in Bosnia.
Despite what Maass might have observed in Bosnia, this is not at all what is occurring in Gaza.
Israel is currently trying to uproot a terrorist infrastructure that has spent years embedding itself within the civilian areas of Gaza, turning schools, hospitals, mosques, and even private homes into rocket launching pads and other military installations.
Civilian deaths in Gaza are due to Hamas’ cynical manipulation of civilian areas for their terrorist purposes, not because Israel is indiscriminately targeting civilians on a whim.
Similarly, when Israeli forces enter hospitals, it is due to the use of those facilities by Hamas gunmen and leaders, not out of abject cruelty or spite. The recent extensive IDF operation at Al-Shifa Hospital, in which hundreds of Hamas gunmen were killed, and hundreds more were arrested, attests to this reality.
As for his claim that Israel is blocking food aid or cutting off water supplies, this is simply an inversion of reality.
Further in the piece, Maass alleges that, based on his understanding of international law, Israel is committing war crimes and that its conduct is tantamount to genocide.
How does he come to such conclusions?
For the war crimes allegations, Maass asserts that Israel is undertaking a revenge operation in Gaza, where it is purposefully targeting civilians and is violating the rule of proportionality by harming a large number of civilians “for a minor battlefield gain.”
Despite his lack of access to Israeli military intelligence, his unfamiliarity with modern urban warfare, and his observing the war from thousands of miles away, Maass seems perfectly confident in his understanding of Israel’s war conduct that he is able to make such a bold assertion.
With regards to his claim of genocide, Maass alleges that “sufficient evidence for indictments” against Israel “appears to exist” as, according to its legal definition, the crime of genocide includes the intent to destroy a group “in whole or in part.”
For Maass, Israel can be credibly accused of genocide as it is seeking to destroy the Palestinian population of Gaza “in part.”
However, the “part” of the Palestinian population in Gaza that Israel is seeking to destroy is the Hamas terror group. According to Maass’s twisted logic, every army bent on destroying a terror group or enemy military force could, in theory, be accused of committing genocide.
No, the key words are “intent to destroy…a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
Israel is not trying to eradicate the Palestinians. It’s addressing the rampant culture of terrorism that led to 10/7.
Targeting terrorists does not a genocide make. https://t.co/9lst462LfP pic.twitter.com/G22aahMjIT
— Jacki Alexander (@JackiAlexander_) April 10, 2024
Perhaps the most perfect example of how Maass’ experiences in Bosnia cannot correlate to the current war in Gaza cannot be found in this op-ed, but in a tweet he posted on October 18, 2023, the day after the Al-Ahli Hospital explosion.
Although Israel was initially blamed for the damage wrought outside the hospital, by the time Maass tweeted, it was becoming clear that the explosion had actually been caused by an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket directed at Israel.
Nevertheless, Maass felt it appropriate to tweet about how, during the conflict in the Balkans, the Bosnians were falsely accused of bombing themselves. For Maass, since it was inaccurate in Bosnia, it must also be inaccurate in Gaza.
Ironically, in the same week that a video was released where an Islamic Jihad leader admitted that it was a rocket that caused the explosion, Maass is still peddling his “expertise” in war crimes and false analogies between Bosnia and Gaza in order to tarnish Israel’s reputation and to harm its fight against terrorism.
From my book “Love Thy Neighbor,” on claims the Bosnians bombed themselves:
“Thankfully, we have not always been so circumspect, and did not demand, during World War II, that Winston Churchill provide proof that the bombs exploding in London were German rather than British.”
— Peter Maass (@maassp) October 18, 2023
A Simplistic Understanding of Zionist History
Coupled with Peter Maass’ poor understanding of the current war in Gaza is his simplistic view of Zionist history and the idealization of “non-Zionism.”
Maass draws on his own family history, pointing out how, despite financially supporting the immigration of Jews to the British Mandate of Palestine, his ancestors were opposed to a Jewish state in the land, as it would lead to “bloody heads and misfortune.”
For Maass, this non-Zionism appears to be the ideal: Jews living in the land but holding no sovereignty, amicably sharing control with local Arabs.
Peter Maass sees a continuation of this ideal in the likes of Jews protesting the Israeli “occupation” (which he deems to be the “underlying problem” in the conflict) and Jewish groups protesting against Israel’s war against Hamas.
However, the fly in the ointment for Maass’ idealized non-Zionism is the fact that it has already been tried and failed.
Prior to Israeli independence, a group called Brit Shalom was founded, which advocated for the non-Zionism that Maass holds dear. However, by 1948, the group had practically ceased to exist as the British Mandate’s Jewish community was forced to come to terms with three decades of Arab violence and intransigence.
In both his “analysis” of the war in Gaza and his view of Zionist history, Peter Maass seems to place the onus for all the violence and carnage on Israel and Zionism, either ignoring or diminishing the role of Palestinian Arabs, including Hamas.
This view of the war in Gaza, and Israeli history in general, is not only superficial and immature but it also creates a skewed paradigm through which one party to a conflict is absolved of any responsibility while the other must shoulder all the blame.
A skewed paradigm can ultimately lead to a deadly and dangerous reality.
It shouldn’t matter that Peter Maass is Jewish. It shouldn’t matter that he reported on ethnic cleansing 30 years ago.
What should matter is that The Washington Post has platformed an amateurish analysis that is based on false assertions, misleading statements, and a superficial understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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