Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen has built an impressive career in US journalism by being a constant thorn in the side of the Russian state. That journalistic campaign entered a new chapter in November when the Russian government issued a warrant for their arrest (Washington Post, 11/27/23; AP, 12/8/23; RFE/RL, 12/8/23; Newmark School of Journalism, 12/11/23).
Gessen, a staff writer at the New Yorker, gave an interview in which they spoke about well-documented Russian war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha (OHCHR, 12/7/22). The Russian government, forever clamping down on negative press of its military invasion of Ukraine, symbolically declared them an outlaw. (Gessen lives in the United States.)
Masha Gessen (Photo: Clarissa Villondo)
Gessen has been an annoyance for the Russian government for some time; their book, The Man Without a Face, portrays Russian President Vladimir Putin not as a cunning political genius, but as a simpleton whose ego ruined the country (Washington Post, 4/7/12; Foreign Affairs, 5/1/12). Gessen, who is nonbinary, left Russia a decade ago after covering the country’s hostility toward LGBTQ people led them to fear for their own safety (Business Insider, 8/23/13).
In the post-2016 shock of Donald Trump’s presidential election, a great deal of US media fell into a trance of believing that Trump’s success could only be explained by Russian electoral sabotage. Gessen, refreshingly, took a different approach. Rather than blame one regime for the electoral outcome, they rightfully put Trump in the context of a global movement of authoritarian backlash toward liberalism. Their pieces linking Trump’s success to the rise of authoritarianism in Russia and Hungary remain essential reading (New York Review of Books, 11/10/16; New Yorker, 3/2/21).
Critical reporting on Putin and Trump is highly valued, and not controversial, in US media. Putin is an authoritarian, yes, but one not backed by the United States, and is viewed as an enemy. Trump, for most liberal publications, is an abhorrent aberration in an otherwise flawed but democratic political system.
‘The ghetto is being liquidated’
Masha Gessen (New Yorker, 12/9/23): “From the earliest days of Israel’s founding, the comparison of displaced Palestinians to displaced Jews has presented itself, only to be swatted away.”
But when Gessen turned their lens to Israel, they fell victim to pro-Israel censorship. Their recent essay (New Yorker, 12/9/23) on Holocaust remembrance culture in Germany was a self-fulfilling prophecy: As a result of Gessen’s observation that the language that most accurately describes what is happening in Gaza—”the ghetto is being liquidated”—comes from the Jewish experience during World War II, the Green Party–affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBS), which was planning to award Gessen its Hannah Arendt Prize, canceled the event.
The Guardian (12/14/23) explained:
The HBS said it objected to and rejected a comparison made by Gessen in a 9 December essay in the New Yorker between Gaza and the Jewish ghettos in Europe.
In the essay, Gessen, who uses they, criticized Germany’s unequivocal support of Israel, drawing attention to the Bundestag’s 2019 resolution condemning the Israel boycott movement BDS as antisemitic and quoting a Jewish critic of Germany’s politics of Holocaust remembrance as saying memory culture had “gone haywire.”
In the paragraph the HBS draws attention to, Gessen wrote that “ghetto” would be “the more appropriate term” to describe Gaza, but the word “would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”
The foundation said Gessen was implying that Israel aimed to “liquidate Gaza like a Nazi ghetto,” adding that “this statement is unacceptable to us and we reject it.”
Chilling censorship regime
Hannah Arendt (New Yorker, 12/9/23) called Israel’s Herut party—a forerunner of Likud—”a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” Such opinions would likely disqualify her for the Hannah Arendt Prize.
Germany’s political culture of strong support for Israel, deeply tied to its guilt over the Nazi genocide of Jews, has led to a deeply chilling and severely anti-Palestinian censorship regime. As I have previously reported for FAIR (11/5/21), this culture has even taken a grip in US media.
There is a special irony in a prize in the name of German Jewish philosopher and journalist Hannah Arendt, whose work on the rise of German fascism is essential, being withheld from another Jewish journalist for writing about the rise of authoritarianism.
Arendt herself, as Gessen’s essay noted, wasn’t afraid to link Zionist extremism with the “N word,” joining other Jewish intellectuals in 1948 (including Albert Einstein) who protested the visit of Israeli politician Menachem Begin to the United States, denouncing Begin’s Herut (Freedom) party as “a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties” (Haaretz, 12/4/14). It seems likely that Hannah Arendt would also be deemed unworthy to receive the Hannah Arendt Prize.
The Daily Beast (12/13/23), New York Post (12/14/23), Washington Post (12/14/23) and Literary Hub (12/13/23) covered the issue. But the absurdity of the situation should be shouted from the rooftops of every respectable newspaper.
Job-costing solidarity
Gessen, of course, isn’t the only media victim of anti-Palestinian censorship since the outbreak of violence began in October. Reuters (10/21/23) reported that
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen said…a Jewish organization in New York City canceled a reading he was due to give on Friday without explanation, a day after he said he signed an open letter condemning Israel’s “indiscriminate violence” against Palestinians in Gaza.
Two writers were forced out of the New York Times Magazine because of their protests against Israel’s military action in Gaza, as the magazine’s editor “Jake Silverstein said the letter violated the outlet’s policy on public protest” (Democracy Now!, 11/14/23).
After Artforum editor David Velasco was fired for posting an open letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians, he told the New York Times (10/26/23), “I have no regrets.” He added that he was “disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure.”
Jackson Frank, a sports writer for PhillyVoice.com, was fired for tweeting “solidarity with Palestine always” (Guardian, 10/10/23). Michael Eisen lost his job as editor-in-chief of the academic journal eLife after commenting favorably on an Onion (10/13/23) article with the headline “Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas” (Science, 10/23/23).
The absurdity of Gessen, a queer Jew, being punished in the name of Hannah Arendt, also a Jew, by a branch of the German political machine for being too open about the nature of global authoritarianism should be a wake up call for how degraded our discourse on Israel/Palestine has become. But it likely won’t change minds in most media. At least not yet.
:…Gessen, a staff writer at the New Yorker, gave an interview in which they spoke about well-documented Russian war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha (OHCHR, 12/7/22). ..”
It is generally understood that the executions in Bucha- of people who had co-operated with Russian forces during the period in which the place was occupied by Russia- were carried out after the Russians left by Ukrainian militias.
Perhaps the author did not know this but I’m sure that Ms Gessen did and it was reprehensible of her not to acknowledge it.
“It is generally understood that the executions in Bucha- of people who had co-operated with Russian forces during the period in which the place was occupied by Russia- were carried out after the Russians left by Ukrainian militias.”
Nothing of the sort is “generally understood.”
FAIR deserves a commendation for courageously taking on the present push across many ideological boundaries to advocate for legitimate criticism of Israel to be the equivalent of ethnic prejudice against Jews. Just as the lock-step support for the American proxy war in Ukraine prohibits any mainstream news outlet from calling the Russian invasion of Ukraine provoked, condemnation of Israeli genocide against Palestinians is likewise not to be read or heard in the American mainstream media. This isn’t what a free media looks or sounds like. This is crude propaganda and narrative control. Thank you FAIR for reporting facts and standing for the truth.
Regarding “Gessen, a staff writer at the New Yorker, gave an interview in which they spoke about well-documented Russian war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha (OHCHR, 12/7/22).” I expect better from FAIR. There is abundant evidence that the Bucha massacre was carried out by Ukrainian troops days after Russian troops left Bucha. Here are some references:
https://georgeeliason.substack.com/p/bucha-proof-of-a-ukrainian-pogrom?s=w
Bucha Proof of a Ukrainian Pogrom
4.5.22
…
https://standpointzero.com/2022/04/04/the-bucha-massacre/
4.4.22
The Bucha Massacre
…
Russian forces began leaving Bucha Irpin, and Hostomel during the afternoon of Wednesday 30 March — a whole three days before these awful videos and images began ‘flowing in’ to the Ukrainian media. The Russian military had entirely vacated the town of Bucha by 16:31 on 1 April, because this is when Anatoliy Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, stood in front of the town hall and declared the ‘liberation’ of the town and posted it to the official Facebook page of the Bucha City Council. It stands to reason, then, that survivors of the massacre and arriving Ukrainian soldiers would have seen the horrific scenes around the streets and reported them — but no. In fact, Mr Fedoruk says nothing about bodies littering the streets in his online liberation address. It is not for another twenty-four hours that a massacre is brought to the attention of the press. Strange.
…
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/the-bucha-provocation.html#more
The Bucha Provocation
4.4.22
The Bucha ‘Russian’ atrocities propaganda onslaught may have worked well in the ‘west’ but it lacks evidence that Russia had anything to do with it.
None of that is “abundant evidence.” It’s all just conjecture, irrational skepticism, and dismissal/minimization of anyone else’s evidence that portrays Russian soldiers as anything less than blameles, holy creatures.
Well, John, perhaps you could provide not just your opinion but counter-evidence.
There’s a whole Wikipedia page about it. It lays out the Ukrainian claims and the Russian denials and the multiple independent investigations that confirm eyewitness testimony of indiscriminate killings and sexual violence by Russian paratroopers.
Russian apologists just like to dismiss all of it and take Russia’s word that the Bucha occupations was all peaches-and-cream pleasant and Ukraine staged the whole thing– despite the fact that there is no evidence (just conjecture and argument) of any evidence being falsified or fabricated.
Seriously: why is it so far-fetched that occupying military forces would engage in war crimes? It’s happened more times than it hasn’t throughout history.
The Bucha town was populated by Russian speakers. The extremely hostile actions of the Kiev regime towards ethnic Russians is well documented. As was the Mayor not mentioning a Russian massacre after the Russians left. Those killed wore white identifying cloths, showing their pro Russia point of view. Their bodies were arranged in a suspicious order. So, yes, the Bucha massacre was a propaganda act by the Ukrainians. Kill ethnic Russians and blame it on Putin. And by the way, the Russians voluntarily gave up Bucha in accord with a peace deal with Ukraine, which Ukraine reneged on, following Boris Johnson telling Zelenski not to follow through on the March/April peace deal. The evidence showing this was a Ukrainian massacre blamed on the Russians is well documented and refutes the black propaganda continuously spewed by Ukraine and its US/NATO paymasters. And now, as of late 2023, the whole Western narrative of Russian ‘unprovoked’ invasion by an inferior Russian force is falling apart, putting Western propagandists in a very embarrassing positiion–they’re getting caught in their lies.
While I don’t completely agree with Gessen’s description of the Gaza situation, I do agree that he should not be “cancelled” or banned from expressing his views. However, I must also note that information which shows the same, and worse, treatment of Pro-Zionist and right wing authors.than this article describes ,is absent from FAIR. FAIR criticizes ONLY such censorship actions taken against leftist writers. There is a plethora of published information showing that right wing or pro-Israel writers have been receiving similar and much worse, treatment. In order to be fair, FAIR needs to publicize this information in order to show that IT is non-biased, and fair .
Please don’t refer to Masha Gessen as ‘he’. Gessen, according to all news coverage I’ve read, uses ‘they’.
Perhaps you might also provide evidence that, despite the massive and well-funded support for the State of Israel in the corporate media, “right wing or pro-Israel writers have been receiving similar and much worse, treatment”. I challenge you.
Interesting choice of words: “Arendt herself, as Gessen’s essay noted, wasn’t afraid to link Zionist extremism with the “N word,”…”. Was Arendt referring to a small and more fanatical group of Zionists, or Zionism itself being inherently of a Nazi-like bent? That sentence is perhaps purposely ambiguous. Maybe an Arendt scholar could enlighten us.
What well documented “Russian war crimes” in Bucha, Ukraine?
You mean the bodies that didn’t rot for 7+ days in spring weather? Or do you mean the bodies that didn’t rot and appeared on the streets after Ukraine retook Bucha in late March 2023 and the national police warned residents to stay inside because there was to be a “cleansing”.
And then a couple days later bodies (not rotted) showed up on the streets of Bucha next to Russian army field ration boxes.
Really FAIR, you can do better than this.
It appears that FAIR, an organisation supposedly dedicated to a more honest and open media, is itself censoring comments by readers. I posted a comment under this article that has not appeared; maybe this is why so many articles now have no comments at all. I will try again.
“Arendt herself, as Gessen’s essay noted, wasn’t afraid to link Zionist extremism with the “N word,”” is a careful and ambiguous sentence. Does it mean that a minority of Zionist fanatics are linked with Nazism, or is it Zionism as a whole? The evidence of history and current events would support the latter, but a clarification by Ari Paul would be helpful.
Moderation seems to be taking longer lately. Probably a good thing with all the hasbara information warfare and trolling going on in the wake of Oct. 7 and Israel’s brutally asymmetrical response in Gaza.
It’s reprehensible how totalitarian the information ecosystem in Germany, and indeed the US and Western Europe, has become since COVID, Russia’s “Full Scale Unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, and especially so after October 7.
I disagree strenuously with Gessen’s writing about the Russia Ukraine war, and about Russia in general. That said, I fully believe in freedom of speech and what’s happening to those writers and individuals who have the temerity to criticize Israel is absolutely unacceptable in a “liberal” “democratic” society. For this organization to cowardly kowtow to the same forces that brought down Jeremy Corbyn is beyond disappointing. At some point in the very near future the charge of “anti-Semitism” as it has been wielded for decades in the US and EU will lose all its meaning, despite “non-binding” resolutions in various state and national legislatures, and its conflation with anti-Zionism.
I really don’t see Israel emerging from this with any mystique or political/social capital remaining. And that’s precisely why Netanyahu’s government and “supporters of Israel” in the West will triple down on the systems of information and speech totalitarianism. On campuses, at workplaces, in the media, on social media, etc. A new wave of censorship and narrative suppression is beginning. One hopes that people like Gessen and what has happened to her will awaken to the dangers of such an approach and speak out forcefully about it.
You lost the argument against the singular ‘they’ long before you were born.
“The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular ‘they’ back to 1375 when it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. Except for the old-style language of that poem, its use of the singular ‘they’ to refer to an unnamed person seems very modern. Here’s the Middle English version: ‘Hastely hiȝed eche . . . þei neyȝþed so neiȝh . . . þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere.’ In modern English, that’s: ‘Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where William and his darling were lying together.’
Since forms may exist in speech long before they’re written down, it’s likely that singular they was common even before the late fourteenth century. That makes an old form even older.”
https://www.oed.com/discover/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/?tl=true
To be fair and accurate, it should be noted that Gessen says they did in fact receive the Hannah Arendt Prize, though it ended up being awarded in a small private “back alley prize ceremony” instead of at the originally planned event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2sCtPCRj-U
Mehdi Hasan: Jewish journalist Masha Gessen on comparing Gaza to a Nazi ghetto