In the wake of the reports that Hamas had butchered dozens of Jewish babies as part of their massacre, ghouls in the liberal/pro-Hamas media demanded Israeli authorities release photographic proof, instead of relying on the accounts of fellow journalists who have seen the evidence. But despite Israel releasing disturbing images on Thursday, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell still called them “misinformation.” Luckily, New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler was there to tell her to stop minimizing the atrocities.
Mitchell whined about “misinformation” and how “the IDF and others in the Israeli government have talked about beheaded infants.” “We haven't seen evidence of that,” she proclaimed.
And she seemed to complain that Secretary of State Blinken and President Biden were giving credence to the story by confirming they’ve seen the images:
Congressman, there’s a lot of misinformation going around as well, but Secretary Blinken described horrendous photos and video that were shown to him by the prime minister in his office today of babies riddled with bullet holes and, you know, people burned, a soldier beheaded.
(…)
I know the President repeated that just saying we're trying to confirm as well as we can in the fog of war what really happened. As horrendous enough as it is, I don't want to quarrel with that.
She says she doesn’t want to “quarrel” over what heinous images we’ve already seen, but calling reports from other journalists about beheaded babies “misinformation” while admitting there were dead babies is essentially trying to set a hierarchy of barbarism carried out. Which is worse Andrea, beheaded babies or babies burned alive?
“Look, Andrea, of course, anytime we are in a situation where there is a war or a military response, of course, everybody wants to minimize civilian casualties. You would hope there are none. But the realities of war obviously are that it's inevitable, unfortunately,” Lawler initially responded.
He then pivoted to calling her out for trying to “minimize” what happened to the babies when Hamas got to them. “And to be clear regardless of whether or you want to say there's no evidence of beheadings, you're talking about innocent babies, innocent children being slaughtered for one purpose because they're Jewish,” he told her off.
Adding: “This is the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. And I think we need to be very clear about this, why this is happening, and what the response should be. It cannot happen. It cannot happen.”
Lawler effectively put Mitchell on the defensive. “And I'm not -- by no means am I minimizing that. I've been seeing things and reporting on things in the last five days that have horrified me. And horrified all of us and all right-thinking people,” she said.
But before her interview with Lawler, Mitchell spoke with Salma Shurrab, a Palestinian social media propagandist who was praised by Al Jazeera last year. Shurrab touted Hamas as “our Palestinian resistance” and Mitchell allowed her to downplay their initial invasion of Israel as some sort of proportional response. Shurrab also whined that the IDF’s precision airstrikes on Hamas targets were someone worse than Hamas’s indiscriminate attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.
Mitchell also sat by and did nothing when Shurrab, whose body of comments sounded as though she was reading from a script, suggested reports and images of Hamas killing babies were just “propaganda” and that there was “no proof” that Hamas had killed any babies, not just beheadings.
MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell lets a Hamas social media propagandist ramble on from what sounds like a script for over 2 minutes. The propagandist claims the Saturday terror attack was a proportional action by "our Palestinian resistance" and falsely claims they killed no babies. pic.twitter.com/2u3y8mwVEA
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 12, 2023
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports
October 12, 2023
1:25:01 p.m. Eastern(…)
ANDREA MITCHELL: Can you understand why they are attacking given what happened to their people on the other side of the border?
SALMA SHURRAB: I'm sure like our Palestinian Resistance is doing our best to just come back to the portions that are happening on us. But the thing is – the comparison between the attack that we're getting is very different because they're very specific places.
Like Israel when they attack us, it's very specific. They're on their airplanes, they’re targeting people from the above. It's very specific and dangerous. It makes you scared of your own life because like the power that they have is very, very large. And we don't even call it a war by now. We call it an aggression because the powers are incomparable.
Actually, we've been keeping up with the news about Israel and the people and the propaganda that they're making about killing babies with no proof. It's very clear to the world that the victim is us. However it started, the victim is always us, has been always us for many years. And this time it's very close to me, my friends, and my parents, and I'm really scared of my life.
I don't think I have a life after this [inaudible] because the streets are destroyed. My university as a business student, I'm graduating this year, it's completely vanished. My future is like destroyed me. I need to find a plan B. While this occupation and this aggression is happening, I'm thinking of my own future, and you know what, I might not even have a future. I need to think now state of my parents, stay safe.
Yesterday or before two days we evacuated our house because our neighbors were getting callings to leave the house. I was very scared, very afraid. I dropped my bag that has literally nothing that could save me. But I tried to run as far, but we realized that we should come back home because you know what? There's no safer place than home. Like we evacuated to a place that is no safer than our house.
And you know, we don't have shelters. People run to the hospital, but the hospital is so full of people and patients that it's no longer taking anyone, no longer having material supplies, food and water. It's very difficult. We can't be safe during all of this.
(…)
1:30:56 a.m. Eastern
MITCHELL: Congressman, there’s a lot of misinformation going around as well, but Secretary Blinken described horrendous photos and video that were shown to him by the prime minister in his office today of babies riddled with bullet holes and, you know, people burned, a soldier beheaded.
I know the IDF and others in the Israeli government have talked about beheaded infants. We haven't seen evidence of that, but that has been what they have said. I know the President repeated that, just saying we're trying to confirm as well as we can in the fog of war what really happened. As horrendous enough as it is, I don't want to quarrel with that.
(…)
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Look, Andrea, of course, anytime we are in a situation where there is a war or a military response, of course, everybody wants to minimize civilian casualties. You would hope there are none. But the realities of war obviously are that it's inevitable unfortunately. And so you certainly try to minimize that, but I think –
And to be clear regardless of whether or you want to say there's no evidence of beheadings, you're talking about innocent babies, innocent children being slaughtered for one purpose because they're Jewish. This is the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. And I think we need to be very clear about this, why this is happening, and what the response should be. It cannot happen. It cannot happen.
MITCHELL: And I'm not -- by no means am I minimizing that. I've been seeing things and reporting on things in the last five days that have horrified me. And horrified all of us and all right-thinking people.
(…)
