MSNBC host Joy Reid doesn’t live in reality, so it’s expected that her questions to senior Israeli advisor Marl Regev would be completely detached from reality too. During Monday’s ReidOut, Reid tried to trip up Regev with a series of manipulatively worded gotcha questions meant to paint Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces as a bloodthirsty group of rampaging genocidal maniacs. Arguably the pinnacle of the stupidity was a question about if Israel would bomb a hospital in Israel, if a Hamas terror leader was hiding in it.
The hospital question was meant to show that Israel put more value on Israeli lives and infrastructure than that of the Palestinians and Gaza. Witness the ridiculousness of the question or yourself:
If you were to discover the Israeli, you know, military were to discover that Yahya Sinwar, who is the Hamas militant who planned the 10/7 attacks was actually hiding in Israeli territory, hiding in a hospital there with his militants, with his men, would Israel drop 2,000-pound bombs on that hospital?
Again, Reid wasn’t living in reality and didn’t care for the facts of it. Israel had already sent its troops deep into Gaza City intending to capture and secure al Shifa Hospital and the Hamas headquarters underneath it. It would have been easier for Israel to drop bunker-buster bombs and level the hospital but they instead chose to do it a harder way. That’s not to mention that other claims about Israel bombing hospitals have long been debunked.
“No, we probably, if it was inside Israel and we had control of the ground, we’d send in our special forces, as we have in the past when you have sort of terrorist situations,” Regev told her. “We have sent ground forces into Gaza. We're losing soldiers in very difficult firefights between us and the Hamas terrorists.”
Reid also parroted Hamas’s propaganda death toll numbers without an ounce of skepticism and even defended them (click “expand”):
REID: [H]ow does killing 18,000, 80 percent of whom are women and children, about half of whom are children, how does that achieve the goal of eliminating Hamas' military infrastructure?
REGEV: Joy, can I urge you please to be a little bit circumspect of those numbers? They are put out by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. And therefore, you have to presume that Hamas has reasons for playing with the numbers. You know that they were very cruel, they have no qualms whatsoever about killing people, innocent civilians. We saw that on October 7. And so, you can presume also they have no qualms about killing the truth.
REID: So, are you saying that you do not agree with the United Nations agreeing with those numbers, most human rights groups agree with those numbers. You're casting doubt on that 18,000 number?
Regev reiterated she should do better and show a basic level of discernment when using numbers that come from Hamas and its allies. “What I'm saying is we have to be very careful with numbers that are put out by Hamas. They would have you believe that they're all innocent civilians,” he said.
The radical MSNBC host even defended Hamas terrorists by whining about the IDF forcing them to strip down to their underwear as part of the surrendering process. She erroneously suggested that Israel was violating the Geneva Convention by doing so.
The Israeli official schooled her by pointing out that Hamas “has been one of the pioneers of the use of explosive vests. And we have had too much experience with people from Hamas blowing themselves up and in the process, killing Israelis around them.”
And while Reid’s ilk on the extreme left were playing word games and attempting to rewrite what genocidal Palestinian cries of “from the river to the sea” mean, Reid smeared Israelis by claiming they were using “the Bible” to carry out “Amalek,” which she claimed called for “killing the women, the children, and the oxen.”
According to Chabad, Amalek was a Canaanite nation and “the first nation to attack the Jewish people after the Exodus from Egypt, and they are seen as the archetypal enemy of the Jews.” “The nation of Amalek is long gone, but they live on as the internal enemies that we each battle on a daily basis,” they added.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
December 11, 2023
7:32:56 p.m. Eastern(…)
JOY REID: Let's start with what I just began with. 18,000 dead so far in Gaza. Tens of thousands injured. The U.S. media has estimated that 2,000-pound bombs are being dropped, some 22,000 of them in just over six weeks. How has causing that much death and destruction, 80 percent of those dead estimated to be women and children, how does that achieve the goal of eradicating Hamas?
MARK REGEV (Snr. Advisor to Israeli PM): So, Joy, first of all, I want to thank you for allowing me to come on The Reidout. It is appreciated. I know you have been a critic of Israeli behavior and I appreciate the opportunity to make my case. And that is very much appreciated.
Our goal in this operation is, of course, not to target Gaza civilians. Our goal is to target the Hamas military machine. We have to eliminate that machine because of the threat it poses to the civilian population of Israel. Israeli people simply refuse to live any longer next to this terror enclave in constant fear that terrorists will cross the border in the middle of the night and murder their children. That's the bottom line. We have to end Hamas' rule of Gaza.
REID: And may I ask how -- I'll re-ask again, how does killing 18,000, 80 percent of whom are women and children, about half of whom are children, how does that achieve the goal of eliminating Hamas' military infrastructure?
REGEV: Joy, can I urge you please to be a little bit circumspect of those numbers. They are put out by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. And therefore, you have to presume that Hamas has reasons for playing with the numbers. You know that they were very cruel, they have no qualms whatsoever about killing people, innocent civilians. We saw that on October 7. And so, you can presume also they have no qualms about killing the truth.
REID: So, are you saying that you do not agree with the United Nations agreeing with those numbers, most human rights groups agree with those numbers. You're casting doubt on that 18,000 number?
REGEV: What I'm saying is we have to be very careful with numbers that are put out by Hamas. They would have you believe that they're all innocent civilians. While it's clear Israel has been targeting Hamas operatives, Hamas terrorists, the Hamas infrastructure. Now, I have no doubt that there have been civilians caught up in the cross fire between the Israeli Defense Forces and the Hamas terrorists. Unfortunately, that's a reality of war.
(…)
7:36:06 p.m. Eastern
REID: Let me ask you this question: If you were to discover the Israeli, you know, military were to discover that Yahya Sinwar, who is the Hamas militant who planned the 10/7 attacks was actually hiding in Israeli territory, hiding in a hospital there with his militants, with his men, would Israel drop 2,000-pound bombs on that hospital?
REGEV: No, we probably, if it was inside Israel and we had control of the ground, we’d send in our special forces, as we have in the past when you have sort of terrorist situations, and we would eliminate him. And we would now send ground--
REID: And you would not do that in Gaza?
REGEV: No, we have. We have sent ground forces into Gaza. We're losing soldiers in very difficult fire fights between us and the Hamas terrorists. We will reach Sinwar, it's only a matter of time.
REID: Let me show you a piece of video. And take a look at it. This is a group of Palestinian men who were marched out of, per U.S. media, including CNN, U.N. Facilities placed on the ground in their underwear and displayed in this way. Who took these pictures sir, and is this not a violation of the Geneva conventions to display these men in this way?
REGEV: So, can I say that the reason they have been asked to strip, except for their underwear, is because Hamas, of course, has been one of the pioneers of the use of explosive vests. And we have had too much experience with people from Hamas blowing themselves up and in the process, killing Israelis around them. And that we would ask people who have surrendered to strip off temporarily. That is a necessity of difficult combat with a terrorist group, that has used this tactic repeatedly in the past. Too many Israelis have died from Hamas terrorists who have exploded themselves with explosive vests.
(…)
7:42:04 p.m. Eastern
REID: Let me ask you one final question and then I really do have to go. There have been some statements by leaders in Israel including your prime minister referring to things like the Amalek, which in the Bible means killing the women, the children, and the oxen; referring the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, saying that Palestinians should be buried like ants, buried alive; talking about using nuclear weapons in Gaza, flattening it; saying turning it into a parking lot; saying this will be a new Nakba. Those kind of statements by leaders in Israel, how should the world interpret them?
REGEV: So, we will defeat Hamas. We have to dismantle its military machine and we have to remove it from Gaza. That's for the elementary safety of Israelis. In achieving that goal – [Reid attempts t cut in] – In achieving that goal, it's not just good for Israel, because we'll be safer and more secure, our people won't have to live in fear of Hamas coming across, as I said before. [Reid attempts to cut in twice] But it's also for the people of Gaza.
REID: You stand by these statements? The people of Gaza being referred to as ants.
REGEV: It's good for the people of Gaza too because Hamas has been ruling the Gaza strip for 16 years, and what is their record of government? Just poverty, misery, bloodshed. They have been terrible for the people of Gaza. Both sides of the frontier, Israelis and Palestinians, will be better off without Hamas.
REID: We are out of time.
(…)
