After falsely claiming “there's a lot of assumptions being made here” about Hamas using Gaza hospitals as human shields and that there was no evidence of it, pro-Hamas MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell was confronted during her eponymous show on Tuesday by Deputy Jerusalem Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum. Mitchell not only doubled down on the lie that Hamas didn’t have tunnels under civilian infrastructure, but she also falsely claimed there was no evidence that Hamas had ever stolen fuel from anyone.
At the top of the interview, Mitchell suggested Israel squandered the world’s sympathy after the October 7 attack and blamed them for the rise in anti-Semitic attacks across the globe. “And there was a lot of empathy for Israel and then with the Jabalia refugee camp being bombed and now the hospitals. You know, Europe is on fire with anti-Israel protests and messaging…there are problems all across the U.S. as well, and anti-Semitic incidents,” she said.
Mitchell also floated the conspiracy theory Israel was intentionally not using what she dubbed “smart bombs” which she seemed to suggest were able to tell the difference between terrorists and civilians. And despite the ground operation moving to engage the Hamas stronghold under Al Shifa Hospital, she wanted “more ground than air strikes.”
“You know, this is a war we didn't ask for. We didn't provoke. We didn't start,” Hassan-Nahoum shot back. After noting that Hamas had threatened to carry out more October 7-style attacks on Israeli civilians, she called them out for stockpiling fuel, food, and water under the hospital and noted it was a war crime.
But Mitchell refused to let the truth about Hamas stand and tried to, once again, lie to viewers by claiming Hamas was not using human shields:
HASSAN-NAHOUM: There's a difference between war which is ugly, and war crimes which is purposefully going for innocent citizens.
MITCHELL: And if indeed there are Hamas terrorists under the hospital, that's a war crime in and of itself.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: Absolutely.
MITCHELL: The counterargument is that everything has to be proportional and that these hospitals are desperate.
Mitchell’s staunch defense of the terrorist organization (which she admitted they were) morphed into outlandishly suggesting that they had never stolen fuel from anyone and bashed Israel for not gifting Al Shifa enough fuel to help babies:
The Red Cross assures me that they deliver their own fuel. They don't contract it out. That they have never had incidents of their fuel being co-opted. They deliver it to people they know in the hospitals. These hospitals the amount of fuel that Israel finally delivered to Al Shifa was enough for a half hour to an hour of what is needed to generate their equipment. So, you have babies dying taken off of incubators.
Hassan-Nahoum countered with the inconvenient truth that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency out of Gaza “put up a tweet at some point that their fuel had been stolen by Hamas and then they had to take it down because, of course, they are very much intimidated, these international organizations.” She also pointed out that the hospital had rolling blackouts “even before October 7” “Because Hamas was sucking all the energy out in order to keep going this terror infrastructure that they had underneath.”
This next exchange might give you whiplash. Despite acknowledging that Israel was delivering fuel, just moments before, Mitchell parroted Hamas propaganda that there were no fuel deliveries, then went back on it and said the deliveries were “not nearly enough”:
HASSAN-NAHOUM: And we are doing everything we can. We’re sending incubators. We’ve sent fuel. We will continue to send fuel. We cannot guarantee that fuel is not going be stolen by Hamas.
MITCHELL: We were told by the government that no fuel is going in.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: We have images of fuel going in, of soldiers taking in fuel. Our soldiers are constantly in touch with the staff of the hospital. We have even --
MITCHELL: Well, the hospital has said it is not nearly enough. But let's talk about --
HASSAN-NAHOUM: They are under intimidation. Under them is a whole terror infrastructure.
When confronted again by Hassan-Nahoum with the truth again, Mitchell pivoted to the negotiations for the hostages. Hassan-Nahoum argued a “cease-fire has to come in exchange for our hostages. We shouldn't even be talking about anything else unless our hostages are home.” Mitchell then ended the interview.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports
November 14, 2023
12:15:58 p.m. EasternANDREA MITCHELL: Let's talk about the conflicting imagery, which is so painful for all sides. But you had this savage massacre on October 7. And I've seen the video and it is unspeakable. And there was a lot of empathy for Israel and then with the Jabalia refugee camp being bombed and now the hospitals. You know, Europe is on fire with anti-Israel protests and messaging. The U.S., now we see this counter march today which is trying to balance it out. But there are problems all across the U.S. as well and anti-Semitic incidents.
Is there a better way for Israel to process this war, something that the U.S. has been urging quietly and now publically in terms of using smart bombs, not dumb bombs, smaller munitions, more ground than air strikes?
FLEUR HASSAN-NAHOUM (deputy mayor, Jerusalem): You know, this is a war we didn't ask for. We didn't provoke. We didn't start. It was something we never expected to have 2,500 terrorists come in and, you saw it yourself, hours of torture, innocent babies who were decapitated, women whose -- pregnant women whose stomachs were opened, babies taken out. You know how horrific that was.
I don't know of any country that wouldn't want to go and defend its citizens from essentially an existential threat. And not just that, the leaders of Hamas are saying, ‘we’re going to do October the 7th again and again and again.’ So, Israel has been put in an impossible situation.
Now, Israel has the strength to flatten Gaza. But we're not doing it. We are putting our soldiers, our young men in harm's way going door to door, because we're a moral army, because we don't want to kill innocent. We have opened a safe passage from Shifa from the first day and Hamas was shooting people outside and not providing the safe passage.
We’re talking about electric and fuel and incubators. Underneath Shifa Hospital there's a whole nerve center of a terrorist base bigger which is bigger than the New York subway. Now, what’s fueling that? They’ve got, according to our intelligence, months of fuel down there, months of food, and months of water. And so, essentially, we're protecting the citizens more than they’re protecting their own citizens. That's what the world should be outraged about.
We can always have these image Olympics. And one image is worse than the next. I'm not justifying anything. But we are in a war. There's a difference between war which is ugly, and war crimes which is purposefully going for innocent citizens.
MITCHELL: And if indeed there are Hamas terrorists under the hospital, that's a war crime in and of itself.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: Absolutely.
MITCHELL: The counter argument is that everything has to be proportional and that these hospitals are desperate. The Red Cross assures me that they deliver their own fuel. They don't contract it out. That they have never had incidents of their fuel being co-opted. They deliver it to people they know in the hospitals. These hospitals the amount of fuel that Israel finally delivered to Al Shifa was enough for a half hour to an hour of what is needed to generate their equipment. So, you have babies dying taken off of incubators.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: First of all, UNRWA put up a tweet at some point that their fuel had been stolen by Hamas and then they had to take it down because, of course, they are very much intimidated, these international organizations. And Hamas operatives are very much embedded in these organizations. So, everybody, whatever they are saying, you also have to take with a pinch of salt because they’re there.
And absolutely. But remember, the Gaza, even before October 7, had four hours of electricity a day. Why? Because Hamas was sucking all the energy out in order to keep going this terror infrastructure that they had underneath. So, the priority of Hamas has never been its people. And we are doing everything we can. We’re sending incubators. We’ve sent fuel. We will continue to send fuel. We cannot guarantee that fuel is not going be stolen by Hamas.
MITCHELL: We were told by the government that no fuel is going in.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: We have images of fuel going in, of soldiers taking in fuel. Our soldiers are constantly in touch with the staff of the hospital. We have even --
MITCHELL: Well, the hospital has said it is not nearly enough. But let's talk about --
HASSAN-NAHOUM: They are under intimidation. Under them is a whole terror infrastructure.
MITCHELL: Let's talk about the hostages.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: Yes.
MITCHELL: Is it possible that there is a deal to exchange Palestinian prisoners in Israel, women, for women and children hostages?
HASSAN-NAHOUM: We heard this morning that a woman in captivatedly has given birth. So, we are so concerned also about what's going on there with our humanitarian crisis with the hostages. I think we have to do everything to bring our hostages home. And if people keep trying to push us into a cease-fire, I would say the cease-fire has to come in exchange for our hostages. We shouldn't even be talking about anything else unless our hostages are home. These innocent – among them five-month old babies, 85-year-old grandmothers, and everything in between.
And so, any deal that gets our hostages home I think is something the Israeli public would be behind. The main thing is, saving these innocent lives that were brutally taken on October 7th and bringing them home.
MITCHELL: Madam mayor, thank you for being with us.
HASSAN-NAHOUM: Thank you.
