Journalist tells MSNBC: "This genocide has to stop"
This has to stop. We can’t just sit here as journalists—or as normal people, whatever your job is—and watch human beings be shredded and say that is self-defense. Nothing about this is self-defense.
Jeremy Scahill, journalist and co-founder of The Intercept and Drop Site News, appeared recently as a guest on Ayman Mohyeldin’s MSNBC live show and delivered viewers a harsh dose of reality regarding the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Palestine.
Below is a transcript of Scahill’s remarks on the show, edited only to remove pauses between responses:
I just want to begin by saying that as we’re speaking tonight, the Israelis are waging an extermination campaign in the north of Gaza. For the past two weeks, they’ve surrounded the area, and they’ve intensified it after the killing of Yahya Sinwar. No food or medicine of any kind has reached most parts of the north. I am in touch with medical officials in the north and with journalists and colleagues. I understand that at least 80 people have been killed tonight in a horrifying set of attacks on half-a-dozen residential buildings. I’ve just gotten done seeing images from the ground, where children are being shredded like meat in a butcher shop. I don’t understand how any of us—whether we’re journalists or not, this isn’t about objectivity—can watch this genocide unfold in real time and watch the pontificating of the politicians running for president and not just cry out, “This has to stop!” I mean, this has to stop. I know you’ve reported on the ground from Gaza. We are watching a genocide in real time. I’m sorry, but on this network also, there are people who have promoted propaganda from Israel. There are people cheerleading for those running for office who are lying to the American people about concern for the Palestinians. And, yes, we should talk about Yahya Sinwar, but Yahya Sinwar is also, in many ways, the story of Gaza. Yes, this was a violent man, but his violence was rooted in the fact that he was born in a refugee camp. And Israel, throughout his entire life, waged a war of annihilation against the Palestinians. I’m not here to defend Yahya Sinwar. I’m here to say that we can’t talk about who Yahya Sinwar was—or what Hamas is—without talking about 76 years of colonialism, of apartheid, of mass killing, of “mowing the lawn,” of controlling the calories. On Yahya Sinwar’s death, the White House is saying this provides a moment to sort of pivot and to make a settlement, and what does Netanyahu do in response to those speeches from Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and John Kirby? He doubles down. He goes full force, final solution on the people of northern Gaza. Yes, let’s talk about Yahya Sinwar, but, my God, we cannot watch more children being shredded and say that this is OK or that this is just a political issue.
What’s interesting is that the Israelis have portrayed for the past year Yahya Sinwar as a rat, hiding in tunnels and using Israeli hostages as his human shields. And, certainly, Yahya Sinwar and others in Hamas operate in these tunnels. That’s been well-known. But look at the narrative even from Israel’s perspective. Yahya Sinwar died in combat gear with one of his arms basically severed in the front end of it, and he still manages to throw a stick at a drone, and the Israelis put this out, and they sort of did Sinwar’s job for him by solidifying his reputation as a man who was willing to die for the cause of Palestinian liberation. So, we’re in a situation right now where the entire Middle East is on fire; Netanyahu’s house was hit; Hezbollah had recently one of its most successful drone strikes on the Golani military base killing a number of Israeli soldiers; the United States has moved a THAAD missile system into Israel [and] has troops on the ground; the White House is sort of humble bragging that US special operations and intelligence were assisting Israel in the operations on the ground in Gaza, including high-value targeting operations; and we have a lame duck president who really seems intent on following through on his undying support for Israel at a time when an utter lunatic is in office in Tel-Aviv right now who is threatening what would amount to a complete incendiary arson campaign throughout the Middle East that’s going to be bankrolled and armed by the United States. We are at a moment where… This has to stop. We can’t just sit here as journalists—or as normal people, whatever your job is—and watch human beings be shredded and say that is self-defense. Nothing about this is self-defense. I’ve covered wars for 25 years. There is nothing about self-defense in what Israel is doing right now, tonight, in northern Gaza.
There’s a reason that Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris, and it’s not, “Oh, we don’t want Orange Hitler to come back into power.” The neocons are looking at the situation right now with the Biden Administration and saying, “We would not have been able to achieve this. There is common ground here.” This is not just about preventing Donald Trump. The neocons have long wanted the kind of war that the United States is now facilitating, and it’s a bonus that it’s happening under a Democratic administration, because the Biden-Harris camp has been able to kind of normalize some of this for parts of their base.
Good reads today, Holler.