Appearing on Fox News’ Hannity on Wednesday, July 30, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of the founder of the terrorist group Hamas, had some harsh words for those who claim that the group is merely a “humanitarian” organization.
Speaking to Sean Hannity, Yousef insisted that Hamas is “not a humanitarian organization. Hamas is a terrorist organization with a humanitarian face to it.” [See video below.]
Not only is Israel on the wrong side of opinion when it comes to the liberal media, but evidently the world’s lone Jewish state is losing its soul as well. At least this was the opinion of Andrea Mitchell on her midday MSNBC program.
In a conversation with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, the Andrea Mitchell Reports host – in reference to the large number of civilians dead in Gaza – questioned what he would say to Americans: “And what do you say to them that Israel may be losing its soul, may be losing the war because of the political impact of what is happening on the ground?” [MP3 audio here; video below]
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu profoundly slapped down moderator David Gregory’s assertion that Israel had been involved in the “targeting of a U.N. school that killed children and those civilians who were fleeing a safe place to go in the fighting.”
Netanyahu resoundingly condemned Gregory’s statement and insisted that the “Secretary General of the United Nations before this incident took place, said that, admitted that two U.N. schools in Gaza were used to stockpile rockets.” [See video below.]
Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer wasted no time on this evening's Erin Burnett OutFront to hit CNN for bias by omission in its reporting on Palestinian casualties at a United Nations hospital in the Gaza Strip.
"I think it would be a disservice to your viewers for a [CNN] reporter from Gaza not to mention that in the last week we had two different UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Works Agency] schools where we had actually rockets found in the schools and handed over to Hamas," Dermer chided host Erin Burnett, who interrupted, "These are two different UN schools, you're saying." "That's correct," the ambassador replied, continuing his attack on the network's bias with a suggestion that the network was not properly doing its homework on the conflict (emphasis mine; watch video below page break):
Rather than dismissing Rula Jebreal’s laughable claim that American media is “disgustingly biased” in favor of Israel, on the July 22 edition of All In, host Chris Hayes was determined to prove to his guest that MSNBC is “doing a good job” being more impartial in the current Gaza conflict.
In Hayes’s eyes, “doing a good job” meant ensuring that “Israelis are losing the media war for the first time.” [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Following an antagonistic interview with Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev, MSNBC’s Joy Reid brought pro-Palestinian guest on to her July 23 Reid Report program for his reaction. Reid lobbed a few softballs and let Yousef Munayyer – executive director of the Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center – direct cheap shot after cheap shot at Israel, irrespective of the facts.
But what really takes the cake is how Munayyer used his platform to deny that Hamas uses innocent Gaza civilians as human shields. Reid, for her part, failed to push back against that ridiculous assertion. [MP3 audio here; video below]
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It doesn't happen often, just enough to pique the interest of conservatives who comprise a sliver of his audience, but comedian Bill Maher occasionally lapses into lucidity.
Earlier this month, for example, Maher observed that liberals are often little more than "useless Obama hacks." Back in April he denounced "political correctness Nazis" who hound him to "censor every joke" and "apologize for every slight." Two months earlier, Maher mocked the awkward fact that liberals got weak in the knees over Soviet dictator Joe Stalin back in the 1930s. (Video after the jump)
While NBC’s coverage of the latest Israel-Palestine conflict has been distinctly anti-Israel, NBC News foreign correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin is perhaps the worst offender. Despite the reality that Hamas has repeatedly rejected Israeli attempts at a cease fire, Mohyeldin touted Palestinian talking points with surprising consistency.
This time, in a report during the July 21 edition of Morning Joe, Mohyeldin cited “Palestinian medical sources” who described the recent Israeli surgical strikes “as nothing short of a massacre.” [MP3 audio here; video below]
The envelope please for most inane apologia in defense of Hamas this week ...
Even worse, this particular inanity comes from Thom Hartmann, a top-rated talker on the barren moonscape known as liberal radio. In response to a caller who took him to task for blaming Israel for the latest flare-up, Hartmann downplayed the peril posed by Hamas firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians. (Audio after the jump)
You can always count on MSNBC to bring on a radical, seemingly pro-Hamas guest in order to get ‘both sides’ of the argument in Israel's struggle for survival against terrorism. On a July 17 special late night edition of All In with Chris Hayes, guest host Ari Melber discussed the news of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza with a panel of guests.
Melber led off the segment by asking Noura Erakat – described as a human rights attorney by MSNBC – whether the invasion was a “proportionate and precise operation?” Naturally, Erakat went unhinged: [MP3 audio here; video below]
The New York Times' coverage of the ongoing situation in Israel, which began with the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, continued this past week to be marked by intense anti-Israel bias in tone and labeling, and overwhelming emotionalism over the deaths of Palestinian civilians in the crossfire (Israeli deaths from terrorism rarely if ever merited such heart-felt treatment). After the tragic deaths of four young Gazan boys on a beach, the Times let its photographer hint at something sinister: "Children, maybe four feet tall, dressed in summer clothes, running from an explosion, don’t fit the description of Hamas fighters, either."
New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren's straightforward lead story Thursday, "Israeli Invasion of Gaza Is Likely, Official Says -- Brief Cease-Fire Is Set," was accompanied on the front page by a large, tragic photo of dead children over an emotionally manipulative story by Anne Barnard, "Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife."
"A Damaging Distance," Ethan Bronner's news analysis for the New York Times Sunday Review, blamed the "growing human distance between Israelis and Palestinians" not on Palestinian terrorist attacks against civilians, but Israel's security measures to stop it.
Bronner's tenure as Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the Times was marked by pro-Palestinian bias, including slanted labeling, calling hard-line Israeli supporters "extreme right" without bestowing similar labels on the hard-left of Israel. He also helped spread the truly dehumanizing characterization of Jewish settlers as "rampaging" during protests. He left a consolation card for the Palestinian cause upon his departure in March 2012.