Right Web

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

Jackson Diehl has been deputy editor of the Washington Post editorial page since February 2001.[1] Diehl, who has been with the Post since 1978, has also worked as a metro reporter, a foreign correspondent, and a newsroom manager.[2] According to his Post bio, “Diehl was awarded the Inter-American Press Association Award for Interpretive Journalism in 1984 for his coverage of South America, and the Bob Considine Award of the Overseas Press Association in 1990 for his coverage of the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe.”[3]

Diehl’s stint as deputy editorial page editor has coincided with what many observers deem a decidedly hawkish and conservative turn in the page’s editorial stances.[4] Diehl’s own writings—he publishes a regular column for the Post on foreign affairs—typically lean to the militarist right, leading one observer to characterize him as “the knee-jerk hawk at the Washington Post.”[5] Among his habitual targets are Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Syria, the Obama administration’s Middle East policy, and Israel’s Arab neighbors. Diehl also has a hardline view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that aligns closely with Israel’s rightwing Likud Party.[6]

Diehl consistently places the blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Palestinians—or President Obama—and never Israel. He wrote that “Mahmoud Abbas has no interest in negotiating” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, failing to note that Netanyahu’s preconditions—including recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state” before any negotiations could take place—are widely seen as an effort to kill peace talks before they begin. He wrote that Netanyahu’s “hard part will be managing Barack Obama,” rather than engaging in any fair peace talks. Diehl has also claimed that Abbas “has repeatedly shrunk from committing himself to the painful concessions he knows would be needed for Palestinian statehood,” never once noting what “painful concessions” Israel should make for peace.[7]

Responding to Obama’s widely noted May 2011 Mideast-policy speech, Diehl eschewed neoconservative talking points by pointing out that U.S. policy had long featured the 1967 border as the basis of peace talks. However, he also wrote that Obama called for negotiations “that focus on territory and security while postponing the issues of sovereignty over Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.” Curiously, he wrote that “Netanyahu has never liked that approach”—even though it is longstanding Israeli practice to refuse to discuss Jerusalem.[8]

Diehl also criticized Obama for going easy on Syria in his speech. Glossing over Obama’s statement that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad had “chosen the path of murder” in his response to the demonstrations there, Diehl wrote that Obama had given Assad “one more chance. Assad, [Obama] said, ‘has a choice: He can lead that transition [to democracy] or get out of the way.’ Plenty of Syrians will wonder why a dictator who has used tanks and artillery to gun down hundreds of unarmed civilians should still be regarded as the potential leader of a democratic reforms."[9]

In a May 2011 column Diehl opposed Palestinian moves for UN recognition and bashed the idea of a unified Palestinian leadership, claiming Mahmoud Abbas “blew up four years of U.S.-sponsored institution building, relative peace and growing prosperity in the West Bank” by reconciling with Hamas, a position that is widely shared by right-wing leaders in Israel and “pro-Israel” hawks in the United States.[10]

Earlier, in a May 2010 column, Diehl claimed that President Barack Obama had “not done well” in handling foreign leaders, specifically Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[11] He mischaracterized Obama’s foreign policy approach by claiming that diplomatic engagement was a matter of “personal chemistry and confidence, the construction of a bond between leaders that can persuade a U.S. ally to take a risk,” thereby ignoring the consistent intransigence shown by Karzai and Netanyahu in their relations with the U.S. president.[12]

Diehl has also whitewashed Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, saying that Obama “sabotaged” Middle East peace talks by demanding Israel follow its international commitments and cease construction.[13]

Diehl, however, has expressed reservations regarding the viability of the Greater Israel project. For instance, according to one report, “At a recent Washington Institute forum on potential maps for a peace deal, Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl, a Middle East hawk, said Israeli annexation of Beit El is not realistic in a final peace deal: ‘Beit El dominates the road between the two major Palestinian towns of Ramallah and Nablus. ... This type of scenario is unacceptable to Palestinians.’”[14]

Diehl has also called for the United States to take a harder line toward Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In September 2010, for example, he cited archconservative Roger Noriega’s controversial assertion that Venezuela and Iran were cooperating closely, possibly on nuclear activity.[15]

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.