Did the Times of Israel say genocide was permissible? Spoiler: NO

A blogger on the Times Of Israel website posted a piece today asking when genocide was permissible. The Times of Israel moderated it off. People are posting screenshots and responding on Twitter as if the Times said it themselves.

Hmm, Times of Israel have pulled down that horrendous 'When Genocide is Permissible' article. Here it is: pic.twitter.com/ByJkK65PsE

— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) August 1, 2014

They didn’t.

As far as I can tell they pre-moderate their bloggers. You fill in a form and pitch an idea. If they approve it, you can publish.

The blogger in question – Yochanan Gordon – himself said a couple of months ago:

I’m not sure if there is a minimum of submissions required to become an official blogger, however I’d like to acknowledge the editorial staff at the Times of Israel site for allowing me to join the ranks, giving me a platform with which to share my thoughts and opinions on a variety of issues with their readers everywhere. When it hit me that I earned the title of an official contributor in the blogosphere I was caught in a dilemma of sorts – which is I always felt that the term blog or blogger in my mind always carried a negative connotation. Now, that might be painting with a broad stroke all the thousands of blogs that exist online, but it seems to me that many of them are run by people who would normally not have a platform to share their slant of the news, which the internet has afforded them the opportunity to do.

The genocide question post expresses a horrible view. But pretending it actually reflects the opinion of the Times Of Israel is like saying any newspaper with a post-moderation policy is racist/sexist/votes Ukip because of the comments left underneath their articles.