MSNBC Host, Palestinian Analyst Say Attacks On Israel Deserve ‘Context’, Blame Israel

MSNBC host Ali Velshi and Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh attempted Saturday to shift blame onto Israel on after Hamas mercilessly attacked Israel.

Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, launched a relentless attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing rockets and invading on the ground. Gunmen streamed across the border and reportedly began brutally slaughtering Israelis and allegedly taking people hostage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the country was “at war.”

But that didn’t stop MSNBC from blaming the Israelis.

“We have had a lot of statements from Americans, mostly Republicans this morning but some Democrats, it’s a boiler plate. ‘Israel is our greatest ally,’ ‘The only democracy in the Middle East,’ ‘Our strongest ally,’ ‘We must stand with Israel.’ There’s no nuance or recognition of anything that has been going on,” Velshi said. “Let alone, the only thing Americans are worried about these days are these so-called judicial reforms going on in Israel which has led to hundreds of thousands of people protesting on the streets, but lots of Palestinians have said to me, ‘Boy, they wish that those same Israelis who are out there protesting the so-called judicial reforms would be protesting Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation. But that’s just not something that’s happening. It’s not something we’re hearing from American politicians this morning. It’s not something we’re hearing from— I think the only comment I’ve heard is from the government of Qatar this morning about this.” (RELATED: Fact Checking Videos, Images And Posts From October Hamas Attack On Israel)

“Unfortunately you’re right. American politicians and other politicians think they can just ignore the context in which all of this is happening. The fact that Israel is an occupying power. The fact that Israel has violated international law and Palestinian rights as per the experts: the leading UN agencies and leading human rights organization around the world like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Their work is reliable and acted on in other areas but not here,” Odeh said.

“Because Israel is the U.S.’s ally, because, Israel— we spend taxpayer money on buying Israel defense systems and trying those defense systems on Palestinians. You do not want to bother that. You don’t want to change that balance or change the status quo. The fact is there is an entire people who are living under the boot of the Israeli army. They don’t want to do that anymore. They’ve tried everything. Even the statement from Hamas, and this is not about Hamas. I really want to caution your viewers not to be dragged into the good-guy-versus-bad-guy equation. We have to look at the bigger picture.”

“In the West Bank, millions of Palestinians are living under the mercy of Israeli settler militias, who are armed, and the Israeli forces, who raid, kill and detain at will without any consequence. That’s not a tenable situation and ignoring it won’t change that,” Odeh continued.

Velshi previously worked at Al-Jazeera, a Qatari-state owned media operation.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran all publicly blamed Israel on Saturday for being victims of the attack.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds Israel alone responsible for the current escalation due to this ongoing violations of the rights of the Palestinian people, the latest of which is the repeated raids on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli police,” the Qatari Foreign Ministry said, according to The Hill.