MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough launched into a tirade on Tuesday against the BBC and “some others” in the media he accused of downplaying anti-Semitism in Europe.
Scarborough suggested that the BBC fire reporter Tim Willcox, who mentioned Israel’s violence toward Palestinians during an interview with a Jewish woman in the aftermath of the Paris attacks on Sunday. Willcox apologized the next day after criticism, calling that particular question “poorly phrased.”
“I cannot believe the BBC is going to allow this man to stay on the BBC,” Scarborough told the “Morning Joe” panel.
Scarborough mistakenly called the interviewee a Holocaust survivor (she was in fact the daughter of survivors) and concluded that “there is anti-Semitism in Europe and there is anti-Semitism in the media.”
Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein said during the segment that the situation “underscores the fundamental reason for the founding of Israel: you have to have a refuge from this.”
“Yeah!” Scarborough said. “There is a reason Israel exists!”
“And this was it,” Stein replied, apparently referring to the Paris attacks.
“For people in Europe that don’t understand why Israel exists, take what happened last week and multiply it 2 million times,” Scarborough said. “The fact that the BBC has someone insensitive and cold to the realities — this did not happen 300 years ago!” Scarborough said.
“This happened 60, 65 years ago, while Europe sat by and did nothing. They let 6 million Jews be exterminated. This is why Israel exists,” he repeated. “And people need to get a hell of a lot more sensitive to it, even if they are left-leaning media members.”
Watch the clip, courtesy of MSNBC:
AMErican REPUBLICANS WOULD have BEEN aBLE to SAVE ALL the JEws HAD it NOT been for THE DEMONRAt libtards aND EurOPEs WanTING alL the JewS to BE KILLED 65 YEars ago or SO!1!!!one!!1!!!
Joe should follow the Today show’s pitiful example and hitch his crap wagon to a cute, innocent puppy…
"Scarborough suggested that the BBC fire reporter Tim Willcox, who mentioned Israel’s violence toward Palestinians during an interview with a Jewish woman in the aftermath of the Paris attacks on Sunday. "
Joe, fire thyself.
Because discussing the Israeli pogrom against the Palestinian people and the war crimes committed by Israel is ALWAYS anti-Semitic, right? How gauche to pose such a question, ever! I realize the context of the reporter’s question was awkward, but Israeli genocidal policy towards the Palestinians is an integral part of the debate concerning fundamentalist extremism, on all sides.
As for firing the reporter, I guess “Je suis Charlie” only applies when directed towards the “right” targets.
“underscores the fundamental reason for the founding of Israel: you have to have a refuge from this.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! RIGHT!!! Clearly, that’s why they chose that precise spot!!! There simply couldn’t possibly have been a better choice of location to give European Jews “refuge” from those who might hate them!!! Hindsight’s 20/20 and look how well it worked out!!!
To be fair, he seems partly correct: European Jews weren’t given part of Europe because of anti-semitism in Europe, and because, well, why give them something in Europe if you can give them something somewhere else that you took from other people? But it seems to me that his argument about “refuge” just fails completely on its face unless you assume every single person on the planet was a complete and utter fucking retard in 1948 and lacked any understanding whatsoever of the realities of the Middle East. Perhaps that was the case. I’ll admit to not having the best academic grasp of the Jewish displacement in Europe and diaspora to that region during that time period, but I just can’t buy his superficial, grade-school-textbook reasoning either.