MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski appeared visibly disgusted by “Squad” member Pramila Jayapal’s comments over Hamas raping Israeli women during the October 7th massacre.
During a Sunday interview with Dana Bash on State of the Union, Jayapal was confronted about her lack of forceful condemnation against the rape of women as a war crime.
“Frankly, morally, I think we cannot say that one war crime deserves another,” Jayapal said. “That is not what international humanitarian law says.”
“With respect, I was just asking about the women and you turned it back to Israel. I’m asking you about Hamas, in fact.”
Jayapal said she thinks rape is “horrific, sexual assault assault is horrific.”
“However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians,” Jayapal said.
“But you don’t see Israeli soldiers raping,” Bash shot back.
“Well, Dana, I think we’re not–” Jayapal said before Scarborough and Brzezinski cut in to express disgust.
“My Lord, was she equivocating–” Brzezinski said before both hosts told the control room to play the end of the clip.
“What’s remarkable is that you have many people, international organizations on the left, that just can’t condemn Hamas raping and abusing and raping to the point of death and then parading it,” Scarborough said. “Yeah, but there was never it wasn’t ‘We can condemn Hamas.’ It always has to be ‘there’s always moral equivocation.'” (RELATED: SUZANNE DOWNING: Women’s Rights Orgs Wave Off Atrocities Committed Against Jewish Women And Girls)
“You can never say that what Hamas did [to] the Jewish women was absolutely savage and beyond the pale. It always has to be ‘Yeah, but Israel.'”
Scarborough then took aim at Jayapal’s comment that “it happens,” arguing he doesn’t see Israeli soldiers going into Gaza and raping women there.
It took the UN Women, a department in the United Nations that describes itself as a “global champion for gender equality,” 56 days to condemn the mass rape of Israeli women by Hamas.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen tweeted that the message was “weak and late” after having come two months after the attack.
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