Special Update: The Guardian dumped Joshua Treviño today, August 24, for good, citing in a joint statement, Treviño’s failure to disclose a major conflict of interest. Read the statement and the events leading up to the dismissal here.
The Guardian still hasn’t dropped Joshua Treviño. In fact, Treviño, one of the paper’s latest additions, was given the opportunity to insult the public’s intelligence with an attempted clarification of one of his many offensive and bigoted tweets. This is the “important perspective” we need, The Guardian insists. But it really isn’t.
On June 25, 2011, just days before the second Freedom Flotilla prepared to sail, Treviño posted the following remark on Twitter:
A year later, following public outrage over The Guardian‘s decision to hire him as a columnist (though he has apparently been demoted), Treviño published an explanation of the tweet in which he says:
“I realise that this statement left a sizable number of people appalled that I, by their reading, urged the Israeli Defense Force to shoot Americans participating in the second incarnation of the Gaza flotilla.
“I urged no such thing. I intended no such thing.”
So that we’re all clear, here is a word by word breakdown of Treviño’s tweet to show that it is exactly what he intended.
Treviño addresses the tweet to the Israeli military.
Treviño establishes that the following is a hypothetical scenario.
A direct reference, again, to the Israeli military.
A colloquial and passive way of saying “to perform an action”
The action that the Israeli military will perform in this scenario.
The target of the imagined shooting.
The setting for the hypothetical scenario framed after Israel’s raid of the first Freedom Flotilla one year ago that left nine civilians dead including Furkan Doğan, an American citizen of Turkish descent.
A crap word that doesn’t make this statement any less disconcerting.
Treviño likens his opinion to the opinions of a majority of Americans.
The ones that won’t “end up” being shot and killed by the Israeli military.
A hip way of saying “are comfortable with” or “will not say no to the idea of” or even “find no problem with”.
Again, referring to the scenario involving the Israeli military shooting Americans that “most Americans” allegedly find acceptable.
Treviño confirms that this is exactly how he feels, exactly what he intends to say and present.
There is no way Treviño’s statement can be misunderstood. But to provide even more context and to show that this statement isn’t an anomaly, here’s what he wrote three days after the first Flotilla:
Maybe later Treviño will write something about how he’s never even used Twitter before, and maybe The Guardian will run it.
For more, check out The Electronic Intifada‘s ongoing coverage of Treviño and The Guardian.
If I were to end up shooting Josh Trevino, well, I’m cool with that.