Of all the people MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell could have invited on to her Monday show to discuss the fighting between Israel and Hamas, she chose an Israel hater, a man repeatedly charged with anti-Semitism, Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi.
Mitchell asked Khalidi, who views Israel's very existence as an act of conquest and its survival as acts of war, "Are you hearing anything new from the administration in the last couple of days beyond what was initially said by the State Department last week that Israel has the right to defend itself?"
In the least shocking answer in the history of cable news, Khalidi said, "Frankly, no. This mantra of Israel has the right to self-defense is essentially a cover for Israel to continue this offensive."
He alleged:
this administration in the United States are complicit from shielding Israel from any real pressure such as the U.N. Security Council was prepared to exert yesterday, and which was prevented by the stonewalling of the U.S. Ambassador. I think what we're talking about it has to be seen in real terms as war crimes as one of your reporters mentioned, and it's not just targeting civilians. It's indiscriminate use of violence against civilians and it's disproportionate use of violence.
No reporter on MSNBC accused Israel of targeting civilians, but Richard Engel did ask an Israeli military spokesman about three apartment buildings that fell after Israel struck a road that covered a Hamas tunnel network.
Still, Khalidi repeated his charges that the U.S. is complicit in war crimes, "Israel has a military doctrine the disproportionate use of violence and force, and I think that what the United States is doing is basically running interference for Israel as it commits war crimes."
Despite the fact that Hamas started this by firing rockets at Israeli civilians, Khalidi condemned those who place the blame where it belongs, "It can be argued that the indiscriminate firing of rockets at Israel is also a war crime, but to put the onus on Hamas as this administration does to repeat this mantra that Israel has the right to defend itself is essentially, I think, shielding Israel and providing cover for the continuation of an attack."
Without mentioning the Iron Dome by name, he also lamented that Israel has the ability to defend its civilian population, "Prime Minister Netanyahu says is going to continue, perhaps indefinitely, with more tragic loss of life, mainly Palestinian life: 20 to 1. The numbers matter. They're human beings and there's a piece with a young woman speaking from Gaza, but the numbers also matter. Over 200 Palestinians, 11 Israelis have been killed and those are the proportions in every one of these wars."
Concluding the segment, Khalidi accused Israel of demonizing Hamas in the same way Britain "demonized" the IRA and maintained he does not support violence.
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Here is a transcript of the May 17 show. Click "expand" to read more.
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:09 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: Are you hearing anything new from the administration in the last couple of days beyond what was initially said by the State Department last week that Israel has the right to defend itself?
RASHID KHALIDI: Frankly, no. This mantra of Israel has the right to self-defense is essentially a cover for Israel to continue this offensive. What I think it means that this administration in the United States are complicit from shielding Israel from any real pressure such as the U.N. Security Council was prepared to exert yesterday, and which was prevented by the stonewalling of the U.S. Ambassador. I think what we're talking about it has to be seen in real terms as war crimes as one of your reporters mentioned, and it's not just targeting civilians. It's indiscriminate use of violence against civilians and it's disproportionate use of violence. Israel has a military doctrine the disproportionate use of violence and force, and I think that what the United States is doing is basically running interference for Israel as it commits war crimes. It can be argued that the indiscriminate firing of rockets at Israel is also a war crime, but to put the onus on Hamas as this administration does to repeat this mantra that Israel has the right to defend itself is essentially, I think, shielding Israel and providing cover for the continuation of an attack, that it seems from what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says is going to continue, perhaps indefinitely, with more tragic loss of life, mainly Palestinian life: 20 to 1. The numbers matter. They're human beings and there's a piece with a young woman speaking from Gaza, but the numbers also matter. Over 200 Palestinians, 11 Israelis have been killed and those are the proportions in every one of these wars. In 2014 it was each more disproportionate and over 2,000 people were killed when Israel dropped 21 kilotons of high explosives on Gaza. Let's stop before that happens.
