“Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.
"People think it’s okay to bomb a hospital where children, you know, what’s so hard sometimes is watching those videos and and the people telling the kids, ‘Don’t cry.’ And like, let them cry!”
-- Statements by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan)
Imagine if some fringe Republican official had said that, with the second line coming yesterday, even after Hamas's claim of Israeli responsibility for the explosion had been comprehensively debunked.
Think Morning Joe would have highlighted those remarks, and ripped the Republican who made them? That's a rhetorical question.
But in its opening segment today criticizing sources in America who spread the Hamas slander, Morning Joe was conspicuously silent about Tlaib's odious statements. The liberal media protects its own. The Democrats don't have a fringe.
That said, we'll give Morning Joe good marks for the show's forthright condemnation of American media's credulous support of Hamas's accusation that Israel was responsible for the explosion at a Gaza hospital. As our Curtis Houck has documented, the liberal media, including CBS, ABC, CNN, and other outlets bought into, and broadcast, the Hamas lie.
On today's show, Morning Joe was unsparing in ripping such outlets.
Scarborough called such reporting "reckless and irresponsible," adding, "we don't expect Hamas to be honest about anything. We don't expect partisans to be honest about anything. We do expect, though, news agencies to be careful and not immediately just throw up the claims of terror organizations."
The show brought in Jeremy Bash, a former Obama aide, now an MSNBC analyst. He predictably praised the "terrific job" that the United States [read, Biden administration] has done in debunking Hamas's lies. And he joined Scarborough in criticizing the media's willing gullibility:
"Unfortunately, too many journalists automatically credited the Gaza health ministry, which is, of course, run by Hamas."
But, like Scarborough and rest of the panel, nary a peep from Bash about Tlaib buying into Hamas propaganda.
Morning Joe being very critical of US news outlets that accepted Hamas's accusation that Israel was responsible for the explosion at a Gaza hospital, but failing to mention Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who continues to accuse Israel even after Hamas's lie has been debunked. was sponsored in part by Chewy, GoDaddy, Prevagen, Coventry Direct, and Constant Contact.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
10/19/23
6:02 am EDTJOE SCARBOROUGH: Questions about some of the reporting immediately following that tragic bombing of the hospital in Gaza.
A lot of the intel, U.S. intel, pointing toward the fact that it was an islamic Jihad rocket. There are, if you read the Wall Street Journal this morning, talks, and transcripts of intercept between Hamas, with members of Hamas saying, that yeah, it's, it's, it's one of our rockets. And talking about how the fragments of it don't look like an Israeli bomb.
You have General McCaffrey and others looking at the pictures that have come from there, and saying, you just, you look at the pictures. And as General McCaffrey has said before, he knows about blowing things up. He spent his life doing it. He goes, there's no way in the world that that hospital was hit by an Israeli bomb.
And yet, my God, the news reporting was so reckless and irresponsible, that, well, you have an entire region in flames now.
. . .WILLIE GEIST: Hamas, meanwhile, blamed an Israeli air strike for the explosion without citing evidence. A claim that was widely accepted across the Middle East and in some quarters of America.
As the Wall Street Journal editorial board points out, quote, Hamas may still call this a success. Its propaganda held up long enough to set the Middle East ablaze.
And there is the problem, Joe, with leaping to conclusions and taking Hamas, yes, Hamas at its word about what happens in this war.
SCARBOROUGH: Right, and, and, and sources, again, inside of Gaza that immediately report something that immediately goes up on websites, and on TV screens across America . . . We don't expect Hamas to be honest about anything. And we don't expect partisans to be honest about anything. We do expect, though, news agencies to be careful and not immediately just --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Slow down.
SCARBOROUGH: -- Throw up the claims of terror organizations. Slow down. Get the story right.
. . .
JEREMY BASH: With respect to the intelligence picture on that hospital bombing, I thought the United States did a terrific job coming out there very quickly and saying, based on three sources of information: overhead imagery, communications intercepts, and open source data, which is analyzed through powerful algorithms in U.S. technology systems, based on those three pieces of information, we assess this rocket came from Islamic Jihad. And I actually think the U.S. was pretty forceful in its, in its pushback there.
And I take Joe's point, and I've been talking about it, as well, it was reckless. It was irresponsible to let the lie get halfway around the world before the truth got its boots on.
But this is an information-operations war, and it's part of the battle space now, where you have to contend with lies, misinformation, and disinformation. And unfortunately, too many journalists automatically credited the Gaza health ministry, which is, of course, run by Hamas.
So, this was a, I think, and important kind of alarm that should go off in everybody's mind. That when Hamas makes a claim, you have to take it with a pound of salt; you have to really validate it. Because unfortunately, as you know, there were real consequences. Crowds gathered outside embassies. People could have gotten hurt, people could have gotten killed. And the Arabs missed an entire opportunity to sit down with the President of the United States over what turned out to be misinformation and a lie.
