On Sunday afternoon's MSNBC Live, host Ayman Mohyeldin devoted a nine-minute segment to the violence on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel as he fretted that both the American news media and the Trump administration are too soft on Israel.
He even complained that, after criticizing Syria for using chemical weapons, President Donald Trump did not take the time to condemn Israel for shooting protesters whom Mohyeldin portrayed as innocent in spite Hamas trying to exploit the demonstrations to stage attacks.
The MSNBC host began the segment at 5:47 p.m. Eastern by commenting that the events are "a story you've probably heard very little or nothing about this week," and then added:
At least 29 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military as thousands continue to protest at the Gaza-Israel border. Palestinians are demanding a right to return to land they were forced to leave some 70 years ago when Israel was created, and an end to the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
He then showed a few clips of what journalists in other countries are reporting about the events, including video of British journalist Jonathan Rugman painting the protesters as "peaceful." Rugman: "Even from a couple of hundred meters away, we can hear the Palestinian chants of peaceful -- peaceful demonstration and 'God is great.'"
The MSNBC host then quoted from a Los Angeles Times article which complained that the American media engage in a "misrepresentation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and then cited a headline from The New York Times which he suggested did not do enough to inform readers that it was Palestinians who were killed, and that they were killed by the Israeli military, as the MSNBC host complained that the headline is "a rather ambiguous headline that obscures who did what to whom and why."
He then added: "And while the U.S. President condemned the chemical attack in Syria, he hasn't said anything about the flareup on the Israel-Gaza border. Now, Trump's Middle East envoy, however, released a statement that certainly seems to take a side."
After reading a statement suggesting that Gaza's Hamas leadership was to blame for the violence, Mohyeldin complained: "He made no mention, of course, of the use of live ammunition against unarmed civilians."
Instead of forthrightly informing viewers that Hamas has tried to use the protesters as human shields to infiltrate the border and attack Israel, including some armed fighters, the MSNBC host waited substantially into the segment before finally bringing up the Israeli point of view.
After noting that several Israeli officials had been unable to appear for the discussion, he introduced his two guests who both came from a viewpoint of criticizing Israel -- Yousef Munayyer of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Robert Mahoney of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Munayyet began by claiming that "it's quite simple what's going on -- you have a population in the Gaza Strip that is really sick and tired of the situation that they're facing," and then added that Palestinian Arabs in Gaza are being subjected to a "very brutal and indiscriminate siege that is targeting over two million Palestinians," and asserted that there had been a "brutally repressive response of those protests."
A couple of minutes before the end of the segment, Mohyeldin finally read a statement from Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon accusing Hamas of using civilians as "human shields" to aid attacks, giving the question to Munayyer to merely deflect.
It was never mentioned by anyone that the blockade exists to prevent Hamas from importing weapons, or the fact that Egypt also takes part in the blockade since the Arab state shares a border with the Gaza Strip and also fears Hamas as a threat.
