“I’m Jewish, and I’ve Covered Wars. I Know War Crimes When I See Them”: Reporter Peter Maass on Gaza

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez we end Today's Show with journalist Peter Moss who has written an opinion piece for the Washington Post headlined I'm Jewish and I've covered Wars I know war crimes when I see them unquote until recently Peter was a senior editor at The Intercept he's the author of Love Thy Neighbor a story of War he covered the Bosnia War for the Washington Post and the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq for the New York Times magazine Peter welcome to democracy now you begin your piece in the Washington Post by saying how does it feel to be a war crimes reporter whose family bankrolled a nation that's committing war crimes I can tell you lay it out for us well my great great-grandfather was Jacob Schiff who was a phaner at the end of the 19th century early 20th century uh one of the wealthiest people in the country probably um who donated a lot of money and organized um the the movement of Jews persecuted Jews from Europe largely from Russia but also from other countries in Russia to any safe haven that would have them including America but also significantly British controlled Palestine and then his son-in-law my great-grandfather Felix warberg who married Jacob schiff's daughter continued that process of supporting and helping to organize the migration of persecuted persecuted Jews from Europe to British control of Palestine this is before World War II the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel yet you say they were anti- zionists can you explain well they were non zionists which was actually different um significantly different uh from being anti-zionist there was a movement amongst American Jews and Jews elsewhere in Europe Europe that was called non Zionism and for them the non zionists the point was Jews should be able to go to British control Palestine they need to go to British control Palestine because they need Refuge from the persecution they're suffering in Europe but they were against the establishment of a Jewish state for two reasons one is that they were concerned that if there were a Jewish State then all the anti-semites in America and elsewhere would look at Jews who are not living in this Jewish State and say ah you know loyalties actually to this other country and that would kind of increase suspicions of of Jews and and make them seem lesser citizens in the countries that they were living in and then the second concern which is one that a lot of people had but that non zionists um also had and and and pronounced was they were concerned about violence between Arabs and Jews they just kind of said look you know if one side the Jews or the Arabs for that matter uh try to exert total control over the state that's going to be established there because remember at this time Palestine was under the uh control of British mandate uh then it's going to be really violent uh my great-grandfather refer to it as a shooting gallery and and Peter you also covered the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and could you talk about how your uh your journalism there helped it helps inform your perspective of what's going on because many of of course of our listeners and viewers are not familiar with those uh those Wars and the war crimes committed there in the early 1990s uh Yugoslavia which was a kind of conglomeration of of different republics I five or six I forget the precise number actually um began to fall apart and instead of falling apart peacefully it fell apart uh violently and there was first a war when Slovenia one of the republics uh re seceded and then there was a even larger War when Croatia another one of its constituent republics uh uh suceeded and then when Bosnia did the same this was in 1992 this was unfortunately the largest war of all there were a significant number of serbs who lived in Bosnia um and slovon mosovich who was the leader in Belgrade of kind of all serbs in the country organized the um kind of provisioning of of military material and uh uh soldiers Guerilla Fighters paramilitaries uh to go in and uh basically fight against the Muslims and croats in Bosnia who wanted to have an independent state and who voted in a referendum for an independent state and the Warfare which I went to cover it was not your ordinary war of Army against Army it was a war of paramilitaries committing atrocities against defenseless civilians largely Muslims some croats and it also consisted of sieges against the few cities that were able to resist the onslaught Saro was one of these cities sanito was another one of these cities and so I was there covering this war seeing terrible things happen that are not supposed to happen in War I mean Wars are violent civilians get killed in in Wars but it's not always illegal in this case there were civilians right under my window in Saro getting shot by snipers I wrote about that there were civilians whose houses were getting bombed there civilians who were standing in bread lines who were getting bombed and killed there were Aid shipments of medicine and food that were being prohibited from entry into these so-called safe areas because they were supposed to have been protected by the United Nations but were not and so I was there reporting on this and in 1993 a year after this War Began U there was an international criminal tribunal that was set up to investigate war crimes and possible genocide that was occurring at the time in Bosnia and that tribunal subsequent ly did um hold a number of Trials including of senior Bosnian Serb leaders the military leader rco madich the political leader ravan karajic and the Serbian leader slan mosovich in which the charges included genocide and both karajic and Lich are now in jail for the rest of their lives on charges that include genocide so I was reporting on this genocide as you compare what you saw in Bosnia to what you saw in Gaza you write in that piece when I reported from besieged s I stayed in a hotel that was smack on the front line with Serbian snipers routinely firing at civilians walking under my window on a spring day in 1993 I heard the familiar crack and whistle of a sniper's bullet followed by an awful scream I went to my window and saw a wounded civilian trying to crawl to safety um writing in the post more than three decades ago I described the man's desperate shouts as a mad howl of a person pushed over the edge it came from the lungs from the heart from the mind you write in the Washington post you also write about disturbing video footage from Gaza that shows kalak walking on a so-called safe route in January with her grandson 5-year-old Thim Adel who was holding a white flag when she was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper talk about uh the comparisons or what you call the Rhymes yeah I mean God I remember those stories so well um this is the most there's so many disturbing things going on in in in in Gaza now and in the West Bank but um as the Israeli attack uh began after the Hamas attack on October 7th against Israel um you know we began seeing these videos and reports emerging from these very brave journalist in Gaza um of what was happening and for example that video of this grandmother being shot obviously quite intentionally and everything that I was seeing flowerline massacres in in in Gaza for example um airdrops of humanitarian Aid that killed some of the people they were intended to uh help because they landed on top of these people also happened in in Bosnia um I began seeing just the same kinds of incidents that were the constituent elements in BOS of of genocide um also happening in Gaza but kind of most disturbing in a way at a scale that was larger than Bosnia I mean for example you know in Bosnia over the course of its four-year War there were something like seven or eight thousand children killed which is terrible um in Gaza over the course of of just six months there have been more than 13,000 children killed so you know I just could not help but see not only the parallels but also how what seems to be unfolding in in Gaza is even worse than what I saw in in Bosnia and we we have less than a minute left but I'm wondering your perspective on how the US media has been covering the war in Gaza it's been a real mixed bag and it was a real mixed bag in Bosnia um you know in and and we're all kind of captives of our experiences and so I covered the war in Bosnia I also covered other Wars so you know I may be talking too much about Bosnia but I think it is relevant um in Bosnia there was exceptionally good coverage I think and I'm biased on this but I think um from the journalists who were on the ground largely foreign journalists but also a lot of a lot of Bosnian journalists really good coverage of actually was going on but then in the in the foreign Capitals in Washington DC but also London and France uh France and and and um and Britain were very important elements of the International Community at the time uh the reporting was terrible because it reflected the the the kind of briefings that the journalists were getting from from all their government sources and all the think tank people and and they were just saying oh it's 15 each other so we have the same problem now where there's a lot of bad coverage coming out of the capitals such as Washington although from the ground itself reporting is quite excellent we want to thank you so much for being with us Peter Mass journalist former senior editor for The Intercept author of Love Thy Neighbor a story of War will link to your latest piece in the Washington Post he also covered us invasions of Afghanistan Iraq for the New York Times I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez thanks so much for joining us

Channel: Democracy Now!

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Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: AQV6s0tASGI

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024