Monday night’s NBC Nightly News ran a segment on a legitimate concern many Americans and Israelis had which was: how did Saturday’s terrorist attacks catch the Israeli Intelligence Services and American intelligence communities completely off guard? Sadly, the segment had to include a ludicrous political sideswipe on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by claiming his judicial reforms “distracted” the country and allowed the terrorists to attack.
“Clearly promoting what they see as a victory, Hamas produced and edited a publicity video it says shows their fighters training to use paragliders to attack Israel,” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported before asking: “How could the celebrated Israeli Intelligence Services and military be caught completely off guard? Many tonight [are] calling it a monumental intelligence failure.”
Turning to disgraced former CIA director John Brennan, Mitchell asked: “How did Israel's vaunted intelligence network and military and the U.S. not see this coming?”
“There were a lot of failures that led up to this. Clearly, the Israelis didn't have the either human or technical sources that gave them insight into this,” Brennan surmised. “This clearly was a failure of epic proportions.”
Wrongly answering her own question, Mitchell claimed there were “questions about whether Israel has been distracted by year-long protests dividing the country over the prime minister's controversial plan to overhaul their Supreme Court. Even prompting many army reservists to refuse to show up for duty.”
She never explained how this could possibly be the case. Intelligence failures happen. They rarely have anything to do with political debates over judicial reform.
NBC’s Mitchell can’t help herself. She needs to bring politics into everything. Even a deadly terrorist attack.
The transcript is below:
NBC Nightly News
10/9/2023
6:47:44 p.m. EasternANDREA MITCHELL: Clearly promoting what they see as a victory, Hamas produced and edited a publicity video it says shows their fighters training to use paragliders to attack Israel. How could the celebrated Israeli Intelligence Services and military be caught completely off guard? Many tonight calling it a monumental intelligence failure. How did Israel's vaunted intelligence network and military and the U.S. not see this coming?
JOHN BRENNAN (FORMER CIA DIRECTOR): There were a lot of failures that led up to this. Clearly, the Israelis didn't have the either human or technical sources that gave them insight into this. This clearly was a failure of epic proportions.
MITCHELL: Now questions about whether Israel has been distracted by year-long protests dividing the country over the prime minister's controversial plan to overhaul their Supreme Court. Even prompting many army reservists to refuse to show up for duty. Some reporting Iran helped plan the attack. But U.S. and Israeli officials tell NBC News it's unclear what role Iran played.
MICHAEL HERZOG (ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO U.S.): I want to say that we're examining the exact Iranian role in this. We are not 100 percent sure about their operational role in this and whether or not they were involved in the operation or planning, execution of this attack on Israel. It wouldn't surprise me if we discovered that there was a concrete Iranian role behind the scenes.
MITCHELL: Now new concerns that Iranian-backed Hezbollah will open a second front from Lebanon in the north. This time Israeli intelligence is on high alert.
