On the reflexively anti-Israel show CNN International affairs show Amanpour & Co., which airs on PBS, regular fill-in host Bianna Golodryga spoke on Monday to regular guest “humanitarian Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council," about Israel's supposedly deliberate starvation plan in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Judging by Egeland’s past and present statements on Amanpour, rampant hostility toward Israel is the main qualification for being a “humanitarian” on PBS. He compared Israel’s democratic government to former Syrian thug Bashar Assad’s regime, accused Israel of “deliberate starvation” of the Palestinians, and made a disgusting comparison involving the Israeli civilian hostages held by Hamas. This is PBS's idea of an expert voice on Gaza.
Golodryga cued Egeland up to react to President Trump saying starvation was real in Gaza.
JAN EGELAND: I'm glad that on long last President Trump, Prime Minister Starmer, Max in Germany, Macron, everybody agrees with us who have been saying now for many months that people are dying from starvation, they're dying from preventable disease because there is no medicine, because the hospitals have been bombed. They are dying because there's no water and sanitation. My organization is one of those who are -- have been trying to provide water and sanitation. We have no fuel anymore to do that. We cannot provide even the basic of aid up until this point. So, this has been deliberate starvation and these capitals have known so, because we told them for many months….
Egeland is Norwegian, but his odious comparison came through clear enough: Israel is acting like the former Assad dictatorship, which used nerve gas on its own civilians.
EGELAND: ….we had a functioning ceasefire. There was enough food and other supplies coming in every single day by trusted international organizations from Europe, from the United States, from elsewhere. It functioned at the time. Israel broke off this. They sealed the border and starvation, which is similar to the one of the Assad regime in Syria, and shoot, but with no sanctions to punish those, that strangulation of a population.
He made a disgusting comparison of Israeli civilians taken hostage at a music festival to Palestinians in administrative detention in Israel as a preventative measure to combat terrorism.
EGELAND: ….Of course, the hostage-taking is abhorrent. I've seen that in many parts of the world. It destroys families and these are completely innocent people that were just kidnapped and brought into tunnels. The suffering is unimaginable for them. But it has been negotiations that has gotten them out. And also, by the way, the many hundreds of Palestinian civilians who have been sitting without any trial for a very long time, and many of them also maltreated. It's undeniable….
Two nights later on Wednesday, Amanpour herself devoted most of her show to Gaza, including interviews with the leader of a left-wing Israeli “human rights” group B'Tselem, Yuli Novak, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel Executive Director Guy Shalev, both out with reports accusing Israel of “genocide,” a word minted and defined during the Holocaust but now weaponized to conveniently fit whatever Israel is doing in Gaza.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: ….89 children starved to death in Gaza, seven people in just the past 24 hours. The limited airdrops, an increase in aid trucks is not nearly enough to slow this disaster unfolding before the whole world. The E.U. is now warning that Gaza faces famine. Here is some of the text: ‘The humanitarian situation has deteriorated to an unprecedented and unsustainable level, driven by ongoing bombardments, military operations, mass displacement, and the collapse of basic services….’....And now, in separate reports released simultaneously this week, two leading human rights organizations, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, say the government is committing genocide in Gaza.
Amanpour suggested no Israeli government officials would agree to appear on the show, saying “we continue to request interviews with Israeli government ministers sitting now, with ambassadors and opposition officials.” Why would they, with this sort of treatment on offer?
