All The Washington Post's Mice: Fareed Zakaria's Lie Goes Uncorrected

Open Letter to Martin Baron, Executive Editor, The Washington Post

Dear Mr. Baron,

As you will recall, I recently wrote to you and inquired whether Washington Post opinion piece writers are permitted by your newspaper to lie in their opinion pieces. More specifically, I observed that in a recent Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama appeals to Israel's conscience," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obama-appeals-to-israels-conscience/2013/03/27/a4365b18-96f5-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html?hpid=z2), Fareed Zakaria wrote:

"After all, Israel has ruled millions of Palestinians without offering them citizenship or a state for 40 years."

Of course, as well known to Zakaria, Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert offered Arafat and Abbas an independent state along the 1967 lines with agreed upon land swaps, and Olmert even offered Palestinian control of east Jerusalem. Arafat and Abbas refused.

You were kind enough to respond to my e-mail and inform me that you were forwarding my message to your editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt. Fred Hiatt, however, has not answered me.

Doug Feaver, your reader representative, has also not answered.

I realize, of course, that you are a newcomer to The Washington Post and have no responsibility for the editorial page, but perhaps you know of someone at your newspaper willing to answer my question, which I believe deserves a response.

I remember how your newspaper's courage and integrity were once responsible for exposing the Watergate scandal. Are journalistic courage, integrity and ethics mere relics of the past?

Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey

. . . .

After publication of this blog item, Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post finally replied:

Dear Mr. Grossman,

The history of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is contentious and, as I’m sure you know, subject to widely differing interpretation. Mr. Zakaria’s statement is within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist.

Thank you for your interest.

Fred Hiatt

I will respond to Hiatt's absurd contention (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&) in a later blog entry.