On Friday's Velshi and Ruhle show, MSNBC host Ali Velshi was joined by NBC News international correspondent Cal Perry to discuss the current protests on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The two glossed over the terrorist group Hamas's provocative actions using the protests for cover, and highlighted left-wing Israelis accusing the Jewish state of running a "brutal occupation" without noting their history of bias against Israel.
Velshi introduced the segment at 11:35 a.m. Eastern by noting how many on the Palestinian Arab side of the border have been killed and injured. He then referred to "refugees" who were "forcibly removed" from their homes in Israel without noting that the expulsions and evacuations happened 70 years ago, and that over 99 percent of those Arabs who are categorized as "refugees" are their descendants and have never even been to Israel.
Velshi: "Cal, these are weekly protests that the Palestinians have vowed will go on for some time. They want the right to return to land that is now in Israel from which they were forcibly removed."
Perry did nothing to clarify the refugee issue as he began his response: "That's exactly right. They're calling it the 'Great March of Return.' It's going to take place, and really it's going to peak on May 14 and May 15 -- on May 15, what the Palestinians call 'Nakba Day,' roughly translated means the 'Day of Catastrophe.'"
It was also not mentioned that many of the refugees who left during the war in 1948 voluntarily chose to flee the war after the surrounding Arab states invaded Israel -- and were not all expelled -- as some Arabs remained and became Israelis citizens.
After mentioning the involvement of Hamas without informing viewers that armed Hamas members have attempted to use the protests as cover to infiltrate the border, the two then brought up Israelis who have criticized the military response -- including the newspaper Ha'aretz which they did not identify as a left-wing publication that has been a perennial critic of the Jewish state.
Perry related: "Now, the Israelis will tell you that the protests you're seeing on your screen are being organized by Hamas, that they are terrorist-led. But when you talk to the Palestinians, they'll tell you these are people living under occupation..."
He soon continued: "And many people -- including the international community -- says that Israel needs to be more careful with how they are handling these protests because all of the deaths that we have seen in the Gaza Strip are at the hands of Israeli snipers, Ali."
Perry soon added:
Inside of Israel, if you read the papers in Israel this morning, Ha'aretz -- one of the main papers in Israel, translated from Hebrew means 'The Land' -- the main editorial in Ha'aretz this morning was the killing needs to stop, so there are Israelis that are saying this is not just a heavy-handed approach, this is a continuation of a brutal occupation.
