The Israelis are bombing the crap out of Gaza. It doesn't seem like saving the hostages are a priority at all right now. >> Speaker 2: Israel's utter bombardment of Gaza with constant airstrikes is so extreme that even Jake Tapper seems pretty appalled by it. [00:00:18] While speaking with Biden's national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on the State of the Union. Tapper expressed befuddlement over why the United States seemed to sit on the sidelines as American hostages remain trapped in Gaza, an area that has been absolutely blockaded and cut off from humanitarian aid, fuel, water. [00:00:37] Obviously, they're dealing with a crazy amount of airstrikes. The civilian death toll continues to increase. So Tapper asked Sullivan about it. Let's see what he had to say. >> Speaker 1: What's the conversation like in the White House about the U.S. [00:00:54] conducting any sort of operations in order to save Americans being held hostage in Gaza? >> Speaker 3: Well, the President has been very clear that he has no higher priority than getting Americans back safe. Americans who are being held hostage by Hamas. [00:01:10] >> Speaker 1: The Israelis are bombing the crap out of Gaza. It doesn't seem like saving the hostages are a priority at all right now. >> Speaker 3: Well, for President Biden, they are a priority, they're the highest possible priority. [00:01:26] And he has sent hostage experts to coordinate and consult with the Israeli government on hostage recovery efforts. We do not, at this point have pinpoint location information for where the American hostages are. So we have to continue to refine our understanding of where they are and [00:01:44] even Jake, who they are, because we know there are 15 unaccounted for Americans, but we cannot confirm the precise number of American hostages being held by Hamas at this time. >> Speaker 2: But don't worry, everyone, because our White House is currently [00:02:01] consulting with the Israeli government, which, of course, is signing off on the airstrikes that happen to level entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip, areas where some of those hostages might actually be. But that was just one of the interviews, Cenk, where Jake Tapper actually [00:02:18] challenged some of the narratives coming out of the Israeli government and honestly, corporate media here in the United States. What are your thoughts on what Sullivan said and how he answered those questions? >> Speaker 4: So, first of all, credit to Jake Tapper. So, put aside everything in the past, credit where credit is due. [00:02:35] It's good to see someone on cable news covering this fairly and asking the right questions. God bless on all fronts there. So we'll get to more of that interview. And I just wanna say for now, I always try to put myself in the position of the other person, right? So if I had a family member that was taken hostage, what would I want done? [00:02:55] The very last thing I would want done is bombs dropped onto buildings. What if my family members in the building, what if they're in a tunnel that you're dropping a bomb under? You have no idea. Why are you dropping bombs? No, look, we're gonna lose a lot of folks here, and it's a heartbreaking situation. [00:03:11] So troops have to go in, and they're also human beings, right? And there's gonna be terrible fighting in the streets, I get it. But if I had a family member, I want those troops in immediately, trying to find the hostages. Dropping bombs from the sky, a, is never gonna find the hostages, b, [00:03:27] clearly endangers them. And if I had a family member, I wouldn't want the water and electricity cut off. Well, then what the hell is gonna happen to my family member who's a hostage in one of those tunnels? You got to get in there, I understand that, but this is what they've done so far, is 0% helpful. [00:03:42] >> Speaker 2: Now, what was interesting was how Jake Tapper framed one of the questions he asked Sullivan. So he did this comparison of the Palestinian civilians to the very civilians in Ukraine who are currently dealing with brutal conditions, obviously [00:04:00] an ongoing war thanks to the invasion of Vladimir Putin and Russia into Ukraine. So, let's take a look at how Sullivan handled that framing and whether or not he did a good job in answering this question. Let's watch. [00:04:15] >> Speaker 1: Take a listen to what Secretary Blinken said last year when Putin was targeting Ukrainian infrastructure. >> Speaker 3: Heat, water, electricity, for children, for the elderly, for the sick. [00:04:31] These are President Putin's new targets, he's hitting them hard. This brutalization of Ukraine's people is barbaric. >> Speaker 1: Now, look, Israel is not Russia, Gaza is not Ukraine. It's a different situation. [00:04:48] But cutting off supplies, cutting off heat, cutting off water to civilians, what's the difference? >> Speaker 3: Well, first, thank you for saying that Israel is not Russia, because Israel is not Russia. [00:05:04] >> Speaker 1: Civilians are civilians Jake. >> Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, they are aand they deserve, as I said before, access to water and medicine and food. And we are working actively to ensure that that happens. >> Speaker 4: No, you're not. [00:05:19] >> Speaker 2: Right, so we'll get to Sullivan in a second. I just have to say, and I don't mean to give such glowing reviews on Jake Tapper, but I have to in this context, because it's just so rare to see someone in legacy media ask these difficult questions about the behavior and [00:05:36] actions of the Israeli government and the IDF. It is incredible to see it. >> Speaker 4: Look, I've criticized Jake Tapper dozens of times, and pretty harshly at times. But as I was watching that, I was thinking, go, Jake, go. Someone on cable news saying Palestinians are human, civilians are civilians. [00:05:55] Why do we have a massively contradictory policy when it comes to Russia and Israel? When Russia cuts off the water and electricity, they're barbaric. When Israel does it, Jake Sullivan saying, we're trying to prevent that. No, you've given no indication of that at all, and [00:06:11] this is what you're supposed to do as a journalist. Challenge the powerful and hold them to account, thank you, Jake Tapper. >> Speaker 2: Now, I wanna skip ahead to another interview that Jake Tapper had. So, he has this conversation with Jake Sullivan. Later, he has a conversation with Gilad Erdon, [00:06:29] who is the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Now, during that interview, Jake Tapper basically relayed a message from the Biden administration to the ambassador. And here's how that went down, let's watch. [00:06:45] >> Speaker 1: President Biden and the Biden administration are urging Israel to hold off on any ground incursion until there has been a humanitarian quarter established so the innocent Palestinians in Gaza can escape. [00:07:03] >> Speaker 5: I don't know of any pressure coming from the Biden administration to hold our operation. We said that we will use every mean at our disposal to eradicate Hamas's Turkey mobilities, and we meant it. [00:07:19] The prime minister gave an early warning few days ago already. And sadly, it's very sad because I really feel sorry for the suffering of the people of Gaza. [00:07:35] But we should all remember they elected Hamas 18 years ago. >> Speaker 2: Just wanna remind you all that Hamas was elected 18 years ago. There haven't been elections ever since then. There's essentially a dictatorship by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and [00:07:52] about half the population under the age of 18. So the majority of the population did not vote for Hamas, but they are now dealing with collective punishment by the Israeli government in retaliation for the brutal killings and kidnappings that Hamas had carried out against civilians. [00:08:10] Now, if you find it deeply immoral and disgusting that Hamas targeted civilians in Israel, and I absolutely do, you should have the same feelings in regard to civilians in the Gaza Strip. And it appears that Jake Tapper does, because he follows up that answer with [00:08:26] a pretty hard hitting question, which we'll get to in just a second. Cenk, thoughts on that? >> Speaker 4: Yeah, just real quick on that one, do not use the argument that the Palestinians voted for Hamas, other than the fact that Anna gave you, which is already huge. [00:08:41] The second part of that is, that's exactly what Hamas says to justify killing Israeli civilians. Well, they voted for Netanyahu, they voted for these governments that continue to occupy us, so their civilians are just as guilty. That is totally wrong, abhorrent, immoral. [00:08:57] But when we say, Hamas can't say that, but we'll say it about the Palestinians, again, you destroy any moral, high ground, credibility, etcetera, and you feed into the Hamas ideology that it's okay to kill civilians because of how they voted. [00:09:13] And remember, of course, not everyone voted that way in Palestine or in Israel or in America when we did atrocities. >> Speaker 2: Now, Tapper went on to challenge Gilad Erdan, let's take a look. >> Speaker 1: If Hamas is a terrorist group, which it is, but if it is, then how [00:09:31] can you hold all 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza responsible for what Hamas did? Don't you think that they rule by killing people who oppose them. How seriously can you hold, how seriously can you expect the Palestinian people, [00:09:50] half of whom are kids, by the way, how seriously can you expect them to rise up if they are brutal murderers, which they are? >> Speaker 5: We do not expect them to rebel. We cannot decide for themselves how to live their life, but [00:10:09] we are fighting for our life. We just lost 1300 Israelis who were slaughtered and butchered and massacred. And like any other normal country, we have to ensure that such atrocities will not happen again. [00:10:27] >> Speaker 2: So, it is absolutely true that what Hamas did was wrong. They committed war crimes, about 1301, three to 1400 Israeli civilians died as a result. But currently, the retaliation that's been carried out by the Israeli government [00:10:43] against the Palestinians, they say Hamas, but take a look at the death toll. At this point over 2670 Palestinian civilians gone dead, women, children, innocent civilians. [00:10:59] So again, if there are moral issues with the targeting and killing of Israeli civilians, then you can't have a double standard when it comes to civilians of a different cultural background or religion. [00:11:14] >> Speaker 4: Yeah, let me see if I can clarify the absurdity of this logic. So you remember there was a couple of synagogues that were hit in America, one in Pittsburgh and one in Southern California. And the people who did the killings there, you could certainly argue, are terrorists. They targeted them because they were Jewish and [00:11:31] they had these crazy conspiracy theories. Now, they happen to be awful right wingers in those particular cases. And by the way, there's Nazi compounds in Idaho, for example. There was Nazis in Charlottesville chanting, the Jews will not replace us, [00:11:48] if a foreign country, Israel, etcetera, said, well, you've got terrorists killing Jews inside America. That's true, and then hence, they dropped a bomb in Pittsburgh. We'd be like, what? Are you, insane? What are you doing? Just because there's some terrorists that hit a synagogue in Pittsburgh, [00:12:07] which we all despise, that they did that, etcetera, that doesn't mean you could hit Pittsburgh. They said, a Nazi compound in Idaho, you can't just drop bombs in the middle of Idaho, well, maybe we'll kill some civilians, but we'll also kill some. When you make that analogy to here, everybody goes, well, [00:12:23] of course you can't kill our civilians. But when it's Palestinians, all of a sudden everybody's not everybody, but a lot of people are like, well, maybe you killed our civilians. Maybe that's their problem, maybe they shouldn't have elected Hamas. Maybe they should leave Gaza, which is they literally can't, [00:12:39] it's an open air prison. That's the whole point of the occupation, is they don't control their borders and they can't leave. They're trapped in there, it's an open air prison. I can't believe how well Jake Tapper did in correcting some of those myths. Great job by Tapper. >> Speaker 2: Well, he continued this streak today. [00:12:56] He was interviewing a former Israeli ambassador to the UK named Mark Regev. And I haven't seen this yet, it just broke. But I am curious to see how he handled it, let's take a look. >> Speaker 1: Certainly taking out Hamas's leadership, I understand the point of that. But the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says, 2800 Palestinians have [00:13:15] been killed and somewhere between a quarter and a third of them are children. That's not Hamas's leadership. >> Speaker 6: Can I please offer a word of caution? Now, I know that there is real suffering in Gaza. [00:13:32] There's a war going on, and innocent people are getting caught up in a very difficult situation. I don't minimize that. But you have to take with a grain of salt any information that comes out of the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. [00:13:48] >> Speaker 2: Right, so we should just all ignore what we can see with our own two eyes. The leveling of entire neighborhoods, the 24 hours evacuation order, impacting 1.1 million Palestinians. We should just ignore that because it's all made up by Hamas, right? [00:14:05] >> Speaker 4: So as I look at that city, it reminds me of Istanbul, where I grew up until I was 8. And my parents have an apartment there. And I think, imagine you've got parents who live there or kids who live there, and you see bomb after bomb on top of building after building. [00:14:22] How would you not be a nervous wreck that your parents or your kids are in those buildings? I mean, this is the oldest adage in the world. Two wrongs don't make a right. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. [00:14:39] So we're not guys, this isn't an anti Israel thing. Israel was very hurt, their civilians were massacred. I get their anger, their sadness and their rage. >> Speaker 2: And we felt that anger and sadness and rage. I felt that anger and sadness and rage. [00:14:54] But I also feel anger, sadness and rage when I see Palestinian civilians get killed and brutalized the way that they are as we speak right now, when they are victims of collective punishment that they do not deserve. And what is the point of international war crimes? What's the point? [00:15:12] No one really cares, let's keep it real, okay? Because the United States will continue supporting whatever the Israeli government wants to do. Okay, there's no question about it, it's unequivocal. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made absolutely clear that we will continue funding and aiding the Israeli government as this war continues. [00:15:29] No conditions, no strings attached. Doesn't matter how many Palestinian civilians die as a result of what military operation the government thinks they're engaging in right now. >> Speaker 4: And so far, it has been nothing but counterproductive. [00:15:45] Zero hostages recovered, 2800 innocent civilians killed, which then forces everybody to say, those poor 1400 that died in Israel, but now twice as many poor Palestinians killed inside Gaza. So, you had the world's sympathy. [00:16:02] There was a moment where someone could have been magnanimous. And I was talking to a Jewish friend over the weekend, and I said, look, I know it's impossible and it's probably too much to ask for, but imagine if Israel had, in that moment of incredible grief, said, [00:16:18] we're gonna be better than this, and we're not gonna do likewise. We're going to go and try to get Hamas, and a lot of our troops will be killed doing that, and we're gonna go and try to get those hostages because we need to return them, but we're not gonna drop bombs, and we're not going to kill civilians like they did. [00:16:37] I know they can't say the end occupation right after Hamas attacks, I understand that. Of course, you don't wanna encourage wrongdoing by Hamas, right? But if at a later time, they were to say, we're going to end occupation no matter what happens, [00:16:52] it would give such, there's too much anti Semitism in the world, guys. We need to cleanse that anti Semitism out of the system. And if Israel were magnanimous at a moment when they had no business being magnanimous, no one expected it of them. [00:17:09] It would have been amazing. There's still time. But unfortunately, Netanyahu and this right wing government is not inclined in that direction. Instead, they're inclined in the direction of giving away all sympathy, starting a larger, broader war, attacking civilians as well, and [00:17:25] just going, we accidentally hit the bus, and we accidentally hit the ambulance. I came to rescue people from the bus, and we accidentally dropped bombs on top of residential buildings. No one believes that, I know some people, in their rage and anger and sadness, say, I believe it. [00:17:40] It was all an accident, they didn't mean to kill civilians. But I got news for you, the rest of the planet does not believe that. So this bloodletting doesn't help anyone on any side. Hamas started it, no question in this case, but we cannot have it on either side. [00:17:56] We must protect civilians, no matter what their race, ethnicity or nationality is.