For decades, the liberal media have always had a soft spot for Hamas. Heck, even the Associated Press’s Gaza bureau shared a Gaza City high-rise with the barbaric Islamists. In the days following Hamas’s animalistic reign of terror on October 7, some in the White House press corps pestered National Security Council’s John Kirby during briefings with Hamas talking points.
Kirby, while a longtime Democratic administration apparatchik, showed serious fortitude to not only push back on, but utterly demolish many of their galling takes while reminding them that Hamas’s inhumanity on October 7 started this war.
Below are six of the worst briefings since October 7 and Kirby’s subsequent comebacks, presented in chronological order with the original NewsBusters headline.
October 26 — Credit Where It’s Due: Kirby NUKES Reporter’s Question on Being ‘Insensitive’ to Gazans
In the first of two entries from the October 26 briefing, TV Globo’s Raquel Krӓhenbühl infuriated Kirby by arguing he and President Biden are being “insensitive” and drawing “harsh criticisms” for not only refusing to trust the Gaza death tolls from Hamas itself as wholly accurate, but acknowledging “innocents will die” as “the price of war”.
Kirby had zero regrets as he schooled Krӓhenbühl by explaining to her Hamas’s unspeakable actions to thousands of innocents is what actually constitutes “harsh” (click “expand”):
[W]hat’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families and — anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. What's harsh is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon. I could go on and on. That's what's harsh. That is what's harsh and being honest about the fact that there have been civilian casualties and that there likely will be more is being honest, because that's what war is. It's brutal. It's ugly. It's messy…Doesn't mean we have to like it. And it doesn't mean that we're dismissing any one of those casualties. Each and every one is a tragedy…we should try to prevent and that is why we're in close contact with our Israeli counterparts to do everything we can to help them minimize the risk to civilians that are in harm's way. It would be helpful if Hamas would let them leave. Leave their homes. Leave that leave areas, not shelter in tunnels underneath their houses and in hospitals and let ‘em get out…That is what is harsh.
October 26 — Reporters Defend Hamas Terrorists as Credible People, WH’s Kirby Schools Them
Krӓhenbühl wasn’t the only offending party here as NBC’s Peter Alexander, Reuters’s Steve Holland, McClatchy’s Michael Wilner, and two reporters from taxpayer-funded outlets (National Public Radio’s Franco Ordoñez and Voice of America’s Patsy Widakuswara) badgered Kirby about this supposed injustice of not treating Hamas propaganda – death tolls from their Gaza Health Ministry – as fact.
Ordoñez was crestfallen that Kirby might think it’s “wrong” for “[a]id groups, including the United Nations, that are working in Gaza” and even the U.S. State Department in the past to be “cit[ing] those numbers of the Health Ministry.”
Kirby adroitly brought up the disinformation-boondoggle that was the October 17 fire outside a Gaza hospital caused by a misfired Islamist rocket (and not one from Israel): “Well, do you remember that attack on the hospital? And what did the Gaza Ministry of Health put out? Something like 500? They slapped the number of 500 on it, you know, within the hour of — of that attack.”
October 31 — Um, What? Arab WH Reporter Claims War Has Killed 160 Family Members
A truly bizarre moment went down on October 31 when Sohail Al Shaer from Egyptian TV network Alghad TV first demanded Kirby call for a ceasefire given there’s been “thousands of Palestinian” deaths, “including 160 of my own relatives.”
After Kirby repeatedly expressed his sympathies and explained how a ceasefire would only benefit Hamas’s aims to kill more Israelis, Al Shaer directly accused the U.S. of supporting Israel’s carrying out of an “ethnic cleansing” in the region. Kirby obviously denied that, refusing to give it oxygen.
ABC’s Selina Wang attempted to have him blame Israel for the bloodshed earlier in the briefing, but Kirby wasn’t having it: “How about if I just put the blame on Hamas? I mean...they are putting obstacles up to allow us to get folks out. It’s not Israel. It’s not Egypt. It’s not places like Jordan. The — Hamas has been making it difficult to do this.”
VOA’s Anita Powell had a moment of hackery as well, telling the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre that “[t]here are very many angry Muslim Americans right now who feel like the President isn't listening to them and their appeals for a ceasefire.”
November 7 — WH’s Kirby Smacks Down More Anti-Israel Hardballs From Press Corps
Nadia Bilbassy of Saudi-funded Alarabiya was, not surprisingly, a near-daily voice in the Briefing Room for pro-Palestinian points of view. On this particular day, she urged Kirby to “embrace the dissent voices call for a balance between private and public message and criticize Israel” since Israel’s “in violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention.”
Worse yet, she accused him directly of being controlled by Jews, saying he’s “repeat[ing] what[ever] the Israeli army spokesmen” are “saying”.
Kirby reminded her the U.S. isn’t the United Nations and we make our own conclusions about what constitutes armed conflict. He hit his stride has he hammered away at this belief that Israel somehow doesn’t have “a right and responsibility to defend itself.”
WOW. John Kirby just completely dismantled the anti-Israel smears from WH reporter Nadia Bilbassy Charters of the Saudi-funded Alarabiya.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2023
Al-Arabiya’s Nadia Bilbassy-Charters: “So why not embrace the dissent voices call for a balance between private and public message and… pic.twitter.com/FISSKjLeBB
Kirby then lowered the boom by excoriating those claiming Israel’s war against Hamas constitutes a “genocide” (click “expand”):
[W]e’re one month after this and we ought not forget what happened one month ago. 1,400 people slaughtered in their homes and at a music festival and when Hamas decided to conduct operations, it was with the intent of killing people. You know, I heard this word genocide tossed around about. Hamas actually does have genocidal intentions against he people of Israel. They’d like to see it wiped off the map. They said so on purpose. So, that’s — that's what's at stake here and we’re going to keep making sure that Israel has that ability to do that. Now, as for the voices, of course, we respect all different voices and perspectives on this and we know that there's a lot of high emotion here when it comes to what's going on. We have never shied away from criticizing our friends and partners when we believe it's warranted and we’ll continue to do that. We also believe that — that — that — the — the best diplomacy, the best progress and diplomatic pursuits is to do it privately, and outside the public eye and we’ll continue to do that as well. We’ll continue to have the tough conversations with our good friend.
November 13 — WHAT?! VOA Reporter Suggests U.S. Is ‘On the Wrong Side of History’ by Backing Israel
If there’s to be only one takeaway from the Israel-Hamas war in context of the White House Briefing Room, it’s that Voice of America deserves to be defunded alongside NPR and PBS for it’s far-left quackery.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had a turn at the podium and he faced questions such as this one from VOA’s Widakuswara, who asked whether President Biden is “ever at all concerned that he may be on the wrong side of history here” given the United Nations on a daily basis is largely against Israel in additional to regional outfits like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Bilbassy made another appearance, accusing the Biden administration of “spreading misinformation” about Israeli death tolls. The ladies had backup from The Hill’s Niall Stanage as he went as far as accusing Israel of being a war criminal and pressing the U.S. government to agree.
December 6 — WH’s Kirby EXPLODES After Reporter Calls Israel ‘A Terrorist State’ Wielding
It’s only fitting that this final installment featured Bilbassy as, this time, she asked Kirby what’s an “acceptable” death toll of Gazans and Hamas fighters for the U.S. and if he’d finally start accepting the Gaza Ministry of Health’s death counts as fact. Kirby deflected on both, saying he wouldn’t talk about ratios other than concur that “many, many thousands have been killed” in Gaza.
Another Arab reporter really set Kirby off as he argued Israel is “acting like a terrorist state, killing humans --- civilians, armed people, journalists every day.”
Kirby nuked this activist reporter with the correct thesis to any question along these lines, which is the real ire should be on Hamas for having “deliberately slaughtered and murdered some 1,200 people on the seventh October and it seems like we’re all willing to forget that” along with the hundreds they took hostage and, while Israel should “be very careful, cautious, deliberate…they have a right and responsibility to defend themselves against that very genocidal threat.”
“[I]t is not the Israel Defense Forces’s strategy to kill innocent people. It’s happening. I admit that. Each one’s a tragedy, but it’s not like the Israelis are sitting around every morning and saying, ‘hey, how many more civilians can we kill today? Let’s go bomb a — let’s go bomb a school or a hospital or a residential building and just cause civilian casualties?’ They’re not doing that,” he added.
