A popular blood libel Palestinian leaders and parents tell their people and children goes as follows: "Jews used to slaughter Christians in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos."
In the video (HT Twitchy) which follows the jump, Blitzer asks Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan to confirm that the quoted words just cited are what he recently said and meant. Over nearly seven agonizing minutes, Hamdan never admitted to anything, but certainly conducted himself as if he had uttered those words. To his credit, Blitzer noted that the end of the segment that his question had not been answered, leaving reasonable viewers to believe Hamdan did say previously say them, and that the bare outlines of his attempted excuse, which was essentially a claim that "I was just repeating something someone else said," doesn't fly.
At about the halfway mark of the video, after three minutes of Hamdan stalling with complaints about the Israeli "occupation" and what one Knesset member may have said about "concentration camps," Blitzer decided to go to a recording of the Hamas spokesman saying what he said. Hamdan did everything he could to prevent this from happening by talking non-stop over Blitzer. It appears that CNN had to cut off Hamdan's mic so the network could play the clip uninterrupted. Here is the translation of the original Arabic CNN presented for this clip:
We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos. This is not a figment of imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence.
After the clip, Blitzer again directly asked Hamdan if he believes "that Jews used to slaughter Christians." Again, Hamdan never directly answered the question.
Given that the press has been cutting Hamas all kinds of breaks, partially because many of its members are instinctively anti-Israel and partially because Hamas has imposed a ruthles regime of censorship of any news coming out of Gaza, Blitzer's challenge is refreshing. Much more such behavior is needed.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
