MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell sat down for an interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken that aired on her Wednesday show and featured nothing but questions and statements from Blinken’s left on everything from imploring him to end the war before Hamas’s defeat to accusing Israel of targeting journalists’ families.
Mitchell began by repeating Hamas statistics as if they true to justify her desire that Israel end the war now, “This is the fourth time you have been in Israel since October 7 and you have said from the beginning that that massacre had to be responded to, that Israel had to invade, but now it has been 100 days. It’s 23,000 Palestinian civilian lives, according to reports. The hostages, 134 hostages, six Americans included have been there for all this time. Things have changed. Doesn't Israel now have to wind this down? Isn't that what you want?”
That is fake news. The 23,000 number is not Palestinian civilians, but all Palestinians including Hamas fighters because Hamas knows that if they include combatant deaths in the total that people like Mitchell will dutifully repeat it.
As for Blinken’s response, he affirmed he does want the war to “end as quickly as possible,” but “it's vital Israel be able to do everything possible to ensure October 7th never happens again again and it’s has made good progress toward that objective.”
Mitchell wasn’t convinced, again lamenting Israel does not want to let Hamas off the hook, “You say they made significant progress, but yet, an important minister, [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant, said they are about to attack Khan Yunis in the south very strongly and there are people there who haven't even been moved back to the north.”
Blinken essentially repeated his previous answer, while adding “we want to do everything we possibly can to increase protections for civilians, to make sure humanitarian assistance is getting in and getting to people who need it, and that's what we are working on relentlessly every day and of course, the hostages.”
On the matter of hostage releases, Mitchell again had a culprit for why it isn't happening and it wasn’t Hamas, “Can that happen with Israel -- with other people taking out a Hamas leader and Hezbollah leader with two assassinations? Will that expand the war? Will that make it more difficult to even get negotiations going again?”
Blinken sidestepped the issue of Israel whacking terrorist leaders in Lebanon to simply say that the U.S. and other countries in the region, including Israel, do not seek an expansion of the conflict. Mitchell could’ve responded by noting that despite everyone’s wishes, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, but she took a different route, instead repeating an Al Jazeera claim that Israel is intentionally targeting journalists’ families:
You heard from the Al Jazeera Jerusalem bureau chief about his colleague in Gaza. The tragedy, this bureau chief, a veteran correspondent, has lost now his wife, his son, a daughter, an infant grandchild, and now an elder son. Did you raise that with the government here in Israel? Because there are many who believe that this was a targeted -- these are targeted killings of this bureau chief's children and wife, the entire family.
Al Jazeera might as well rename itself Hamas TV, but Blinken simply expressed that he cannot “possibly imagine what this man has been through.” It should be noted that the IDF has said the son was operating a drone, "We understand they were putting a drone, using a drone. And using a drone in a war zone, it’s a problem. It looks like the terrorists."
Not one question about Hamas prolonging the war by not surrendering or Hezbollah being at fault for the situation in the north or the Houthis escalating things in the Red Sea by targeting commercial shipping that has nothing to do with Israel.
Here is a transcript for the January 10 show:
MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports
1/10/2024
12:24 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: This is the fourth time you have been in Israel since October 7 and you have said from the beginning that that massacre had to be responded to, that Israel had to invade, but now it has been 100 days. It’s 23,000 Palestinian civilian lives, according to reports. The hostages, 134 hostages, six Americans included have been there for all this time. Things have changed. Doesn't Israel now have to wind this down? Isn't that what you want?
ANTONY BLINKEN: Well, we all want to see this conflict end as quickly as possible. We all want to see the suffering, people who are caught in the middle, end as quickly as possible. It's vital Israel be able to do everything possible to ensure October 7th never happens again and it’s has made good progress toward that objective.
MITCHELL: You say they made significant progress, but yet, an important minister, Gallant, said they are about to attack Khan Yunis in the south very strongly and there are people there who haven't even been moved back to the north.
BLINKEN: So, we've seen now a phase down of the operations in the north. That's important. We’ve seen the withdrawal of a significant number forces-- Israeli forces that were in Gaza, particularly again in the north where they have achieved a lot.
And as I said, we want to see this conflict come to an end as quickly as possible consistent with Israel's objective of making sure that October 7th doesn't happen again and as they're completing that effort, we want to do everything we possibly can to increase protections for civilians, to make sure humanitarian assistance is getting in and getting to people who need it, and that's what we are working on relentlessly every day and of course, the hostages. I had an opportunity to meet with families again. I met with many of them -- almost all of them before on several occasions, including with President Biden. For them, these three months have been an eternity. Every day, every hour, every minute feels like an eternity. So, we’re also relentlessly focused on bringing them home.
…
MITCHELL: Can that happen with Israel -- with other people taking out a Hamas leader and Hezbollah leader with two assassinations? Will that expand the war? Will that make it more difficult to even get negotiations going again?
BLINKEN: Well, first, we're determined that the war not expand, that we don't see new fronts opening, that we don't see escalation and that was something that I heard from every country I visited on this trip so far. We were in Turkey, we were in Greece, we were in Jordan, Qatar, in the UAE, in Saudi Arabia before coming to Israel and everyone has a strongly shared interest, including Israel, in ING escalation and expansion and for Lebanon, for example, it's clear to me that Israel does not want escalation and they believe as we do that pursuing a diplomatic path to try to make sure that the conditions exist so that people in Israel who've been forced from their homes in northern Israel, 80,000, because of insecurity, because of the threat coming from Hezbollah, feel secure so that they can come home and equally, we want to see people in southern Lebanon be able to return to their homes and we're on a diplomatic path to try to get that to happen.
…
MITCHELL: You heard from the Al Jazeera Jerusalem bureau chief about his colleague in Gaza. The tragedy, this bureau chief, a veteran correspondent, has lost now his wife, his son, a daughter, an infant grandchild, and now an elder son. Did you raise that with the government here in Israel? Because there are many who believe that this was a targeted -- these are targeted killings of this bureau chief's children and wife, the entire family.
BLINKEN: First Andrea as I said, I don't think any of us can possibly imagine what this man has been through. I'm a parent, a father, that he had this -- the worst possible loss, not once but twice as well as his wife. Again, I can't begin to imagine and my heart goes out to him. It goes out to the many -- the far too many innocent people who’ve lost their lives in this conflict and when it comes to Palestinian men, women and children, or for that matter when it comes to journalists –
MITCHELL: 79 journalists since the war began according to the Committee to Protect Journalists since this war began.
…
MITCHELL: There are many criticisms that Israel is not working with the United Nations. You saw the canned goods in Amman that were being delivered. It's a third of the truckloads that there were before the war. People, 95 percent, you said, have food insecurity that can have lifelong consequences for children. Does Israel have to work with the United Nations with whom it has had decades of an adversarial relationship because of U.N. resolutions and hostile criticism and the U.S. has supported Israel on almost all of this, isn't it critical for this stuff to get in?
BLINKEN: The short answer is yes. Yes, it is. It is imperative that Israel work with the United Nations. It's imperative this assistance get in, that more of it get in and that once it's in, it get effectively to the people who need it. The United Nations is the only game in town. They're the ones on the ground incredibly courageously given they are in the middle of a conflict, in the middle of a war, trying to get assistance to people who need it and they’ve done extraordinary things and it requires cooperation because there's no alternative. There's no choice. No one else is going to do it and if the U.N. wasn't doing it, well, it would be Israel's responsibility to do it. So, this is something again that we have talked about extensively. Look, we’ve made real progress over the last couple of months in opening up new entry points.
