Appearing on Monday's Morning Joe, MSNBC contributor and frequent guest Anand Giridharadas obnoxiously compared Israel's war against Hamas to the Nazi mass murder of European Jews during a discussion of the thousands of Gaza civilians who have died since the war began.
After frequent guest Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations incorrectly claimed that Gaza is "the most crowded parcel of earth on Earth" -- even though there are almost 90 cities that are more densely populated -- host Joe Scarborough went to Giridharadas and teed him up: "Anand, the suffering that's been going on in Gaza for some time has just been just absolutely dreadful, but it keeps going from bad to worse."
Although the push for a Jewish state in the region predated the Holocaust, Giridharadas began by linking Israel's creation to the murder of six million Jews and invoked the "never again" vow that came after no one acted to stop Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution":
And I think it is obviously, first and foremost, a story of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but it is also, hearing that report, if you step back, it's the tragedy of the story of Israel. You know, this is a country that was born out of trauma and the most barbaric treatment of a people -- one of the most barbaric treatments of a people in human history and a country born out of the ideals to protect and create a homeland and have that never happen again, and it had some great things in its constitution that said to be the opposite of what happened to Jewish people in other places.
He then argued that Jews are hurting Palestinian Arabs because they were hurt by Nazi Germany:
And so many of my Jewish friends look at these pictures, and they are so anguished that something that was born out of that hurt and pain and trauma could go in this way, You know, as we all know, trauma can -- if you heal yourself, if you heal a people, it can go in a direction of saying, "Never again," actually "never again." "The trauma that happened to me will never happen again." And we -- there is that political tradition in Israel, but that tradition has been buried by this government -- this movement in Israel that comes from the other human story -- that "If I was hurt, I will hurt."
He summed up: "This is the 'hurt people hurt people' version of the state of Israel. Is it so profoundly sad that 'never again' has become instead, 'I will hurt others.'"
Transcript follows:
MSNBC's Morning Joe
May 5, 2025
6:38 a.m. Eastern
RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: This was already, before any of this, the most crowded parcel of earth on Earth -- two million people were packed into Gaza. Now, we're looking at two million people packed into a slice of Gaza. It's also possible that the Israelis are very interested in the Trump idea of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza. ... My point is, simply, this is awful, but I don't think this is the end of it.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Anand, the suffering that's been going on in Gaza for some time has just been just absolutely dreadful, but it keeps going from bad to worse.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: And I think it is obviously, first and foremost, a story of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but it is also, hearing that report, if you step back, it's the tragedy of the story of Israel. You know, this is a country that was born out of trauma and the most barbaric treatment of a people -- one of the most barbaric treatments of a people in human history and a country born out of the ideals to protect and create a homeland and have that never happen again, and it had some great things in its constitution that said to be the opposite of what happened to Jewish people in other places.
And so many of my Jewish friends look at these pictures, and they are so anguished that something that was born out of that hurt and pain and trauma could go in this way, You know, as we all know, trauma can -- if you heal yourself, if you heal a people, it can go in a direction of saying, "Never again," actually "never again." "The trauma that happened to me will never happen again." And we -- there is that political tradition in Israel, but that tradition has been buried by this government -- this movement in Israel that comes from the other human story -- that "If I was hurt, I will hurt." This is the "hurt people hurt people" version of the state of Israel. Is it so profoundly sad that "never again" has become instead, "I will hurt others."
