It’s fair to say that US media don’t do enough to feature Palestinian voices in discussions of Palestinian issues. NBC‘s Meet the Press managed to interview a Palestinian on August 3–but host David Gregory saw this mostly as a chance to determine how much his guest dislikes Hamas.
David Gregory invited Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations. He started by asking him about the possibility for a “durable ceasefire.” But then he got to his real question–and his only question: How much do you hate Hamas?
Mansour stressed the need to do something about Gaza’s “tragic humanitarian situation,” and Gregory felt the need to interrupt:
And let me stop you on that point. Your anger at Israel, certainly understandable. The loss of civilians, horrific. There is agreement about that. I’m wondering, though, whether you’re outraged by the conduct of Hamas: starting the conflict by firing rockets, building tunnels to kill and kidnap Israelis, being more than willing to sacrifice Palestinian lives by embedding them into their own kind of arsenal and using them, as Israel contends, as human shields. Do you have a level of outrage at Hamas itself?
Gregory’s question includes some dubious assertions–that Hamas started the conflict and that it seeks out civilian death.
When Mansour responded by saying that third-party observers like Doctors Without Borders should be heard, Gregory went back to his demand:
Hold on, I’m asking whether you are outraged that the conduct of Hamas–they fired rockets, they built tunnels for the purpose of killing and kidnapping Israelis, and they do exploit these Palestinian civilians,. when they know they’re going to be in danger from where they’re firing the rockets and so forth. Do you have any outrage towards Hamas?
When the answer was that he was outraged at the killing of civilians, Gregory was back on it:
Fair enough, fair enough…. The reason I’m pressing this point is not to challenge you about how horrific the loss of civilians are. As a more moderate Palestinian political figure, which is what you are, a representative of Palestinian Authority, which there’s certainly no love lost between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, I’m wondering what level of culpability you believe that Hamas has for the advancement of the Palestinian people, not just in this conflict, but more generally.
He still didn’t like Mansour’s answer, so he had to try one more time:
I think a lot of people listening right now would find that compelling, maybe, that the Palestinian Authority could provide better leadership, perhaps, in Gaza than Hamas. But I just want to try one more on this, which is, do you think that Hamas is helping or hurting Palestinians right now?
And that was all they had time for.
All right, Ambassador Mansour, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate you being here this morning.
Then after a report by correspondent Andrea Mitchell (“Israel’s strategy of self-defense is becoming less defensible in world opinion”), the next guest was Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. He was not challenged in the same way, no matter what his claims–that Hamas is “genocidal,” their tunnels exist to “massacre our civilians,” and Hamas actually “want those civilians dead.” Instead of pressing Dermer on, for instance, the death toll so far–the vast majority of them civilians– Gregory asked: “Is the number of civilian deaths by Israel in Gaza unacceptable to Israel?”
The contrast in how the guests were treated could not have been any clearer.
FUN FAIR FACTS!!
REALITY: Hamas’ charter states that Israel should be “obliterated,” and urges the murder of Jews. Hamas routinely lobs missiles at Israel’s civilian population.
FUN FAIR FACT: Israel is genocidal!!
REALITY: Hamas’ charter states that there is no solution for the Palestinian question except for Jihad, and that all negotiations are a joke.
FUN FAIR FACT: Israel is bad because it won’t negotiate with Hamas!!
REALITY: In 1947, the Arabs flouted the U.N. partition plan, commencing a war of extermination against Israel a few years after the Holocaust.
FUN FAIR FACT: Israel won’t listen to the U.N.!!
YOU CAN PLAY, TOO! THINK OF SOME FUN FAIR FACTS AND E-MAIL THEM TO HART – HE WILL USE THEM IN HIS NEXT ANTI-ISRAEL HATCHET JOB!! FUN FAIR FACTS – FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!!
William, I think most people on both the left and right object to the Hamas charter. Hamas was founded by religious extremists, so naturally they would write an extremist charter. When they wrote that charter guess who was providing the funding necessary for their development and growth? Israel. Israel made Hamas possible. This was part of a divide and conquer strategy. The PLO was getting close to a peaceful resolution, so Israel strengthened the position of extremists that don’t believe in a two state solution. There are people in Israel who don’t want a two state settlement either (the Likud charter says there is no Palestinian state). Their goals aligned with the goals of the religious extremists, so they helped create their organization. Do you likewise condemn Israel for making the existence of Hamas possible?
What kind of sense does it make to fund and develop a group that makes religious extremists statements, and then pretend that all the violence you inflict on civilians is justified because of these same extremist statements?
Flouted the UN partition plan? Has Israel ever flouted a partition plan? Not one that barely passed with 2/3 majority as in 1947 but one that passes every year with over 95% support and has done so since 1976? You don’t care about UN plans. Arabs that had lived in a home for generations are told to evacuate with no compensation based on a UN vote that was passed through bribery. They didn’t go along. Is that a surprise?
And by the way, the “war of extermination” took place almost entirely in territory that the UN had designated as Palestinian. Israel was attempting to sieze lands that were well beyond it’s designated borders, and the Arab states felt threatened. What would we think if invading Germans objected when various nations tried to put together a counter offensive after the German invasion of Poland. Are German’s being “exterminated” simply because people try to repel their invasion?
William, are you one of the students that Israel is paying (probably with some of the $3 billion that it takes from US taxpayers) to spread pro-Israeli propaganda online?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/students-offered-grants-if-they-tweet-proisraeli-propaganda-8760142.html
How can you not despise David Gregory, he is the biggest idiot with a voice in this nation. Stupid, or lying, knuckle dragger.
More BS about how the news is unfair. Gee when it is Pro-terrorist no one complains, but when someone dare be pro-Israel, pro-democracy, everyone carries on! We need to even it up a bit here and David Gregory dare question a Palestinian to get at the truth some idiot in the press gets bent out of shape. Hamas started this, the Palestinians elected them and Israel will finish them off. If Mexico shot missiles at us we would wipe them out. Forget disproportionate response nonsense. But then again, with our wuss of a president, we may just invite them to dinner and elect them to congress. Did the US give back land taken long ago from Mexico?? Hell no, we built on it and kept it. You start a war, you lose, you lose the land taken too! They are not “settlements” they are neighborhoods in Israel. If Gaza used all the cement to build and the greenhouses left for them when Gush Katif in Gaza was handed over they would have a booming economy, instead they chose war and they are getting their butts kicked. Sorry that they are causing the death of their own people but it is on their heads. Have you read the stats? Most of the dead are men 20-60- not an age group of innocent people, but terrorists. The media and hamas LIE. AND, NO!! I am not one of those people you think are paid by Israel. I am just a regular US citizen who doesn’t want to picture my grandchildren in burkas or living under sharia law. Had enough of these animals. Watching TV now, they just hit a kibbutz. Hamas says that unless the borders are open they will break the ceasefire. Gee, when are we opening the borders-oh, our idiot in chief already did and none of us are too happy so why should Israel tolerate it??? I hope they wipe Hamas out.
FUN FAIR FACT! Israel detained 450 Hamas politicians immediately before the 2006 elections, after which Hamas rose fro 2nd to 1st place in the polling and won the election in Gaza
FUN FAIR FACT!. Hamas had honored a cease fire since 2012, during which time Israel stole more land in the West Bank, maintained its crippling embargo against Gaza, attacked first with the killing of two Palestinians which Hamas did not respond to, until Israel brutally rampaged around the Palestinian territories looking for 3 teens it already knew were dead, while pretending they were hostages and blamed Hamas who they later admitted didn’t do it.
Fair, Fun Fact – Israel does not want to have negotiate with a unity government, because it wants to keep stealing land for settlements and needed a pretext to again bifurcate Hamas and Fatah.
Fair, Fun Fact Regardless of its “Charter” which like our Constitution doesn’t have to be followed, Hamas has previously agreed that it is willing to co-exist with the Jews. “Meshaal said that he is “ready to coexist” with Jews, but that “I do not want to live with a state of occupiers.” “We are not fanatics; we are not fundamentalists. We do not actually fight the Jews because they are Jews. We do not fight any other races. We fight the occupiers”.
Does David Gregory have any viewers?
My, my, how the hasbara temperature rises.
“William” — and now “Michele” — please answer Gandhi’s question:
Are you being paid to propagate these talking points to divert the discussion?
Eric, I am a long-time Extra subscriber. I am confident that my progressive bona fides are at least as solid as yours.
It’s bizarre that to prove one’s left-wing credentials today, one must cozy up to fascists like Hamas and condemn Jewish self-determination.
Don’t ever bother me again, dummy.
Ya, some how I begin to doubt your Veracity William. You sound nothing like any normal FAIR viewer/subscriber that I have run into (and by the way, I have been reading F.A.I.R. and have been one of their Long Time Subscribers since the late 90’s).
You sound more like a paid troll for the Fux Snooze Nitwork. We know MIcheal E is one, since all his rhetoric is pretty much cut and pasted from the Troll Gods of the Uber-richt, but your just sounding like a paid Blogger Troll who is trying to pretend they are progressive, though in reality are a troll whose genitals are firmly in the pockets of the Lame Stream Media Gods. We can get the same lame info from Micheal E, don’t know that we need you re-re-repeating the nonsense from uber-troll gods.
Can you perhaps show us how David Gregory is doing any good by playing softball with pro-Israeli people, then playing douche bag moron with the moderates, by not listening to what they say, and only shoving words down their throat by the bucket full.
Here, lets play it your way _ William have you stopped beating your dog yet? Don’t try to slip off the hook, answer the question- yes or no. Do you also still hate all non-Jewish people? Do you despise the Palestinian people because they wish their freedoms? Come on we want answers. Just answer yes or no.
MORE FUN FAIR FACTS!!
REALITY: Progressives should support Israel, in order to stand up for Jewish self-determination, oppose fascist Islamists, and refrain from feeding the Palestinians’ revanchist, self-destructive fantasies.
FUN FAIR FACT: Anyone who is pro-Israel must be a Fox-watching, Mossad-paid troll.
REALITY: FAIR’s comments section is composed almost entirely of paranoid, misguided, inaccurate and often anti-Semitic rants.
FUN FAIR FACTS: No one who is pro-Israel should be allowed to disrupt FAIR’s comments section, which is brilliant, stimulating and enlightened.
YOU CAN PLAY, TOO! THINK OF SOME FUN FAIR FACTS AND E-MAIL THEM TO ANTI-ZIONIST FAIR READERS, WHO WILL SPRINKLE THEM WITH IDIOTIC COMMENTS AND TYPOS AND THEN POST THEM IN ALL THEIR GLORY!!
News persons like David Gregory would better employ their talents as interrogators of prisoners at Guantanamo. The Gestapo also would have found him very useful.
YOU CAN PLAY, TOO! THINK OF SOME FUN FAIR FACTS AND E-MAIL THEM TO ANTI-ZIONIST FAIR READERS, WHO WILL SPRINKLE THEM WITH IDIOTIC COMMENTS AND TYPOS AND THEN POST THEM IN ALL THEIR GLORY!! – William
Or we could sit here and watch a Fux Snooze Nitwork Troll pretend he is some what intelligent, all the while showing us he’s as clueless as Alicia Silverstone.
Padremellyrn, here’s some advice. If you indict someone’s intelligence, you might want to remember that “somewhat” is one word, so that you don’t look “some what” moronic.
Michele:
“Forget disproportionate response nonsense.”
What’s wrong, Michele? Not enough Palestinian children dying for your taste?
“If Mexico shot missiles at us we would wipe them out. ”
Right, but if they were blockading you, conducting regular home invasions, kidnapping and torturing your citizens, smearing feces on your private property, sniping at your youth, shooting at your ambulance and medical staff, and conducting homicidal bombing raids that deliberately target your electricity and water systems, you’d be okay with it? Right? Please let us know.
“They are not “settlements” they are neighborhoods in Israel.”
Your apologetics are too pathetic even to rise to the level of a joke. Next.
William: you’re another pathetic creature. Look at this whopper of yours:
“It’s bizarre that to prove one’s left-wing credentials today, one must cozy up to fascists like Hamas and condemn Jewish self-determination.”
What this disgustingly obfuscatory quote shows is that you’re a shameless apologist for war crimes by your favoured state. You equivocate “Hamas” with all of Palestine, and condense everything that occurs between Israel and the Palestinians as “Israel responding to Islamic-fascists”, as though bombing hospitals and Gaza’s only power plant has any bearing whatsoever on the character of Hamas rather than Israel. You adopt the narrative and catch-phrases fed to you, and like a useful monkey, you fanatically regurgitate them as though they were “facts”. You’re so brainwashed that you think that Hamas rockets are “the issue” (because Israel told you so), and simply ignore whatever happened before then (and whatever Israel has done since. All is to be collapsed into the unfalsifiable narrative of “this happened because Israel is fighting Islamo-fascists”). What sort of a “progressive” thinks that rockets fired by those under constant humiliation and siege are primary to and ahead of the structural factors of a racist colonial settler state? Your platitudes, in other words, are neo-NAZI in their quality. Please don’t insult anyone’s intelligence here with your drivel about being “progressive”. We’re not that stupid. Sorry.
“REALITY: Progressives should support Israel, in order to stand up for Jewish self-determination, oppose fascist Islamists, and refrain from feeding the Palestinians’ revanchist, self-destructive fantasies.”
Translation: Progressives should overlook, and, when needed, cheer on the slaughter of Palestinian children, the bombing of Palestinian civilian infrastructure, the routine murder of their youth, the theft of their land, the destruction of their property, and their confinement within an open-air prison. You crying about “fascists” is a disgusting smokescreen to divert people’s attention away from these realities.
“FUN FAIR FACT: Anyone who is pro-Israel must be a Fox-watching, Mossad-paid troll.”
They might as well be. For a “progressive” to spout the Israeli state’s propaganda word-for-word (as you have) means that they should just become a member of the Likud Party and be done with any pretense of being something other than a sock-puppet.
“REALITY: FAIR’s comments section is composed almost entirely of paranoid, misguided, inaccurate and often anti-Semitic rants.”
Translation: William is crying that fewer and fewer people have the stomach to cheer on Israel’s state terrorism against the Palestinians. He also finds it tough to cope with the fact that many Jewish people despise what Israel has done, and call for the Palestinians to be given their freedom.
“FUN FAIR FACTS: No one who is pro-Israel should be allowed to disrupt FAIR’s comments section, which is brilliant, stimulating and enlightened.”
Translation: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! GIVE ISRAEL A BREAK AFTER IT BOMBED GAZA’S POWER PLANT AND CUT OFF ELECTRICITY TO HOSPITALS WITH BABIES IN INCUBATORS, YOU ISLAMO-FASCISTS! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Next time, try to actually address what other people say to you, rather than going off on whiny little tangents that basically berate others for not giving you a free pass to regurgitate Israeli propaganda. I noticed that you didn’t address a single point that you were challenged with by Jon and Walter. You just yell and stamp your feet. What gives?
Geez, our pro-Israel media has no shame.
@michele (is that you, michael e?)- Congrats, you have successfully been bamboozled by mainstream media’s propaganda. Not something to be proud of, by the way.
@Walter – Thank you for bringing some much-needed factual information into this discussion.
@Luis – Thank you for calling out the troll on his absurd nonsense. If that doesn’t shut him up, perhaps we should just stop feeding him.
FAIR ADVISORY – TROLL ALERT!!
Dear Fair readers:
Please be advised that our Comments Section has been infiltrated by trolls! Be wary of anyone who is not fixated on Israel as the source of all evil in the universe.
Here are a few signs that a troll may be in your midst:
**A troll may point out that Palestinian Grand Mufti al-Husseini was allied with Hitler during World War II. (A faithful FAIR reader will recognize that Hitler had some good points – look at the Volkswagen!)
**A troll may note that Abbas may not be the epitome of a moderate. Among other things, he described the mastermind of the Munich Massacre as “a wonderful brother, companion.” (A faithful FAIR reader will understand that the 1972 Israeli Olympic Team was not very talented, anyway.)
**A troll may claim he’s tired of hearing about Deir Yassin – how about the Hadassah medical convoy massacre? (A faithful FAIR reader will understand that accidents happen – let’s not be judgmental.)
Trolls are highly dangerous – they preclude the unanimous denunciation of Israel required of an anti-Zionist lynch mob.
You are hereby authorized to terminate trolls with extreme prejudice!
Your fearless leaders,
Peter “Me no like Israel” Hart
Jim “Naqba their socks off” Naureckas