Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt took a break from calling conservatives and Republicans Nazis, on Monday’s Morning Joe, to direct outrage at those who really threatened the Jewish cause in Israel: MSNBC and the far left’s sympathies to Hamas terrorists. He implored MSNBC reporters to “just watch the footage” of Hamas’s barbarism and “get this story right.”
After being introduced by fill-in host Jonathan Lemire, Greenblatt described the days since the start of the war as “some of the hardest days of my adult life.” He recounted how he had “family in Israel right now under siege and being deployed to the front lines” and “staff who can't locate their family.”
Greenblatt said he was “angry with the world that allowed the dehumanization of Israelis and sanitized the terrorism of Hamas.” And apparently, at the top of his list was MSNBC which he called out by name for taking a sympathetic stance with the terrorist group:
I must say, I love this show, and I love this network. But I've got to ask, who is writing the scripts? Hamas, the people who did this, they are not fighters, Jonathan. They are not militants. And I'm looking right at the camera, they are terrorists! It is a barbarian who rapes and brutalizes women. Who tears – kills children in front of their parents and then brings them over to Gaza.
Throughout the tragic weekend, NewsBusters had documented the sympathetic tone coming from MSNBC and their sister network NBC.
While the slaughter, rape, and abduction of civilians were still ongoing, MSNBC chief foreign affairs correspondent and host Andrea Mitchell blamed Israel for the attack by saying they didn’t listen to President Biden enough.
MSNBC’s Ali Velshi wanted to provide “context” for the slaughter of civilians (a.k.a. making excuses for it) and whined Israelis weren’t protesting for Palestinians:
[Judicial reforms] have led to hundreds of thousands of people protesting on the streets, but lots of Palestinians have said to me, boy they wish those same Israelis who were out there protesting the so-called judicial reforms would be protesting Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation. But that’s just not something that’s happening.
NBC’s Raf Sanchez also smeared the Israeli government as the “extreme right” while they were in the process of attempting to rescue as many of the hostages Hamas took as they possibly could.
Back on Morning Joe, Greenblatt implored viewers at home and MSNBC’s reporters to “just watch the footage” of Hamas’s barbarism:
These were filmed gleefully by the barbarians who committed these grotesque crimes. They filmed, for example, an elderly woman in her home in one of these towns – they burned her alive in her house because she was too infirmed to take out. And you know, parading woman, bleeding from the crotch because they were raped throughout Gaza while people hoot and hauler and cheer.
“It was not destined to happen. It is not normal to shoot teenagers in the back, hundreds of them,” he scolded MSNBC for their framing. “So, I just think, like guys, get this story right.”
He also told the network to “stop calling this a retaliation” because Israel was trying to defend itself from a group with only one goal: “killing Jews. Not a peaceful resolution of a conflict. But murdering Jews.”
[H/T former NewsBusters intern Alec Sears]
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
October 9, 2023
9:13:42 a.m. asternJONATHAN LAMIRE: Jonathan. Tell us, if you will, just what the last few days have been like for you. And why it's so important that you're appearing here today with the Reverend Sharpton.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: Well, so I will be honest, and maybe a little more vulnerable than I normally would be. These have been some of the hardest days of my adult life. I don't ever remember a moment like this. I have family in Israel right now under siege and being deployed to the front lines. I have staff who can't locate their family. I have friends who are gone. And I think Ambassador Danon put it well in a context that Americans can understand: 9/11, the evil that was perpetrated here.
But the scale, Jonathan, the right comparison is Nagasaki. This was like an atomic bomb. And as 40,000 people were killed in Japan, when they dropped that bomb on Nagasaki, so too, were the hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of people who were killed in Israel.
And so, while I am sad and trying to cope, I'll be honest, I am angry. I am angry with the world that allowed the dehumanization of Israelis and sanitized the terrorism of Hamas. I must say, I love this show, and I love this network. But I've got to ask, who is writing the scripts? Hamas, the people who did this, they are not fighters, Jonathan. They are not militants. And I'm looking right at the camera, they are terrorists! It is a barbarian who rapes and brutalizes women. Who tears – kills children in front of their parents and then brings them over to Gaza.
Who literally – we've heard all of these reports and we know these aren't just reports. These were filmed gleefully by the barbarians who committed these grotesque crimes. They filmed, for example, an elderly woman in her home in one of these towns – they burned her alive in her house because she was too infirmed to take out. And you know, parading woman, bleeding from the crotch because they were raped throughout Gaza while people hoot and hauler and cheer.
So look, when we say, “Oh, this is an escalation, it was bound to happen,” I am sorry, this was a massacre that was preplanned. It was not destined to happen. It is not normal to shoot teenagers in the back, hundreds of them.
So, I just think, like guys, get this story right. And all of these pictures of like, you know, missiles or the rubble in Gaza, please talk to the Israeli mothers and fathers who lost their children, talk to the grandchildren whose grandparents were seized as hostages. And please stop calling this a retaliation. This is a defensive measure against an organization that is committed to one thing: killing Jews. Not a peaceful resolution of a conflict. But murdering Jews.
And if you're wondering if I'm exaggerating, please, I beg of you everyone watching and everyone at this network, just watch the footage.
(…)
