Guardian’s Treviño: Only way Mavi Marmara killings could be “better” is if “IDF drew Muhammed on a bulkhead”

Ali Abunimah Media Watch 19 August 2012

New revelations of Joshua Treviño’s bigotry and lies, as Guardian insists he hasn’t been “demoted.”

In his “clarification” of his June 2011 tweet calling on Israel to murder American activists aboard boats to Gaza, the Guardian’s new columnist Joshua Treviño claimed it was all a big misunderstanding:

any reading of my tweet of 25 June 2011 that holds that I applauded, encouraged, or welcomed the death of fellow human beings, is wrong, and out of step with my life and record.

I already explained in my Al Jazeera article that this was disingenous and dishonest, but thanks to EI readers, even more of Treviño’s violent and bigoted tweets have come to light exposing him as a liar.

On 1 June 2010, the day after Israeli forces murdered 9 unarmed civilians aboard the Mavi Marmara in international waters, Treviño tweeted, “Only way the #flotilla story gets better is if it’s revealed the IDF drew Muhammed on a bulkhead.”

In other words, after shooting dead the civilians, 8 Turks and one American, the student Furkan Doğan, Treviño wanted Israeli soldiers to carry out what he and others would have understood as an act of religious desecration.

In another tweet on 2 June 2010, Treviño wrote, “After examining the facts on #flotilla, I condemn Israel: for being too nice, too soft, too accommodating to the scum of the earth.”

In answer to complaints about his hiring, The Guardian’s press office has been distributing Treviño’s piece in which he claimed never to have made such statements, thus making it directly accountable for his falsehoods.

Standing by their man

Yesterday, The Electronic Intifada revealed that The Guardian made surreptitious changes in a press release after it had been published, suggesting that the newspaper was demoting Treviño or distancing itself from him.

Today, the newspaper’s spokesperson denied that in a statement to The New Statesman:

I can confirm that there has been no change in Josh Trevino’s terms of employment - the contract has not been altered and he has most certainly not been “demoted” as some articles have suggested. In fact, a simple mistake was made in the press release and this was later corrected. It was clumsy but there is no change to Josh’s position.

Outrage at the hiring of someone who openly incites murder has grown: today the Guardian published a letter from academics, polticians and other public figures who support Palestinian rights expressing “shock and dismay” at the newspaper’s move.

Bigotry

What’s ironic is that while celebrating the murder of Muslims, and demanding religiously offensive acts as icing on the cake, Treviño, who identifies as an Orthodox Christian, is very sensitive himself.

Treviño said members of the group Pussy Riot had “desecrated” an Orthodox Church by singing a protest song in it, an act for which they were sentenced to two years in prison by a Russian court last week:

Anti-Muslim views

He has also expressed for years his hatred of Islam by demanding that the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul be turned back into a church. He claimed that a mosque was “sullying” the structure. Built as a church, it had later been used as a mosque, but is now a museum.

Remember this is the person who has an “important perspective” according to his new bosses at The Guardian.

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Jinjirrie replied on

In Trevino's deleted blog, there's a morass of seething bigotry. "Multiculturalism is dead", he brays, "Tt rings as true now that Islamism subverts the very societies in which it has found refuge. Will the threatened hosts learn? Will they act?"

http://web.archive.org/web/200...

It's one thing to entertain different points of view, and quite another to tolerate lethal, white supremacist incitement.

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lidia replied on

They used 4 letter words in public place , never mind the church, which is a punishable offence.

I have nothing to do with any religion, and Trevino is the worst sort of person in my book - a racist bigot, but still Ali would be better off not commenting on "song" in language he does not understand. Do words like "God's s..t" belong to "protest" or to hooliganism when "song" in a church full of believers?

So, tell what you want about Trevino repugnant views, but please, let alone PR. They are darlings of such human rights defenders as Merkel. One of their most eager defenders in Russia is one "comedian" Shenderovich whose reaction on Israel mass-murder of children in Gaza in the 2008/9 was such "the killed child's father voted for Hamas".

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Ali Abunimah replied on

People may well be offended by what Pussy Riot did; whether it deserves years in jail is another matter. Regardless, the point here is that Treviño feigns offense at their “desecration” while himself advocating much worse.

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Charlie replied on

When I heard that Glenn Greenwald was joining the Guardian I though that was a great move, but i'm still perplexed at why in the living hell would they give someone like Trevino a platform to spew his disgusting ideas to the masses. This is terrible for the Guardian and they need to remove this racist coward ASAP.

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Philippa replied on

Where on earth did The Guardian find this "commentator"? Does he hang out with the nuts who want to rebuild the temple? If he's so convinced about such barmy ideas, there's bound to be more to come. What will remain of The Guardian's credibility? They're handling all of this very poorly.

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Wilfred Jones replied on

Great work as usual Ali.

You and the other writers on this site are true journalists and are a credit to your profession.

Joshua Trevino, on the other hand, is nothing more than a myopic propagandist who's hate filled views are unfortunately allowed to be aired in parts of the press.

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David Halpin replied on

I suggest the tactics are wrong. Let Trevino 'comment' for the Guardian; that will underline its long standing pro-Zionist bias going back to editor Scott in the early 1900's. Credibility of this organ is mentioned. Is that the credibility associated with its support for the Iraq war - a war essentially for 'Israel'.

We speak of racism here, or bigotry. These are euphemisms. Trevino expresses racial supremacy and an exclusive view of the rest of humanity, that mass of Gentiles. When a gun boat of the IDF rammed the MV Dignity in the dark and early morning of 30 December 2008 the clear intention was to drown the 16 of us. We were an an assortment of colours from the black of Cynthia McKinney to the white of this writer. There were at least 4 Muslims on board as we hastened to Gaza and the crucifixion of its people. The boat was tough so they did not succeed in this plan for watery massacre 66 miles off Haifa. The IDF command and the 3 gun boat officers considered our lives as near worthless. That is the fact. Thank you.

dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/article-categories/6-articles/palestineisrael/70-piracy-off-the-promised-land-the-ramming-of-the-dignity-with-clear-lethal-intent

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Louis replied on

I know it's not relevant to your point here, but he's right about P***y Riot. The sentence may have been excessive, but do their defenders really think it's ok to scream obscenities in a cathedral? I think that's a better description than "singing a protest song".

(I had to edit the P word as your filter rejected me!)

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.