MSNBC foreign correspondent Matt Bradley claimed Monday that the Palestinian protesters are “completely unarmed,” only to admit they had slingshots and were lighting things on fire.
WATCH:
Palestinians are violently protesting in Gaza over Monday’s opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. More than 50 protesters have been killed by Israeli troops while trying to cross the border. (RELATED: U.S. Amb. To Israel: Embassy Not Intended To Provoke Palestinians)
Bradley asserted on-air that the protesters are “unarmed,” only to turn around and admit that they had “light weapons.”
“It is easy to say they were completely unarmed,” Bradley said before immediately contradicting himself. “They had some light weapons.”
“A lot of them would be burning tires or rolling tires to try to melt the razor wire,” he continued. “They had sling shots. They had a new and crazy invention, incendiary kites where they would try to loft kites and set them on fire to try to light up some of the agricultural fields beyond the border with Israel.”
Despite his admission that the protesters were engaging in violence, Bradley insisted that they were more peaceful than the Israeli troops and that the troops shouldn’t be fearful of them.
“It’s kind of hard to imagine how the Israeli troops could have been threatened by a lot of these young people who were really — not peacefully demonstrating — but peacefully by comparison to the Israeli soldiers,” Bradley asserted. “Indeed, no Israeli soldier has been killed and nearly 100 Palestinian have died in the past several weeks of protesting.”