MSNBC national security analyst Jeremy Bash said Wednesday on “Deadline” that the media were “absolutely irresponsible” for saying Israel was behind a blast at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.
Bash said, “I think the news media has to hold the mirror up to itself in this moment. If it weren’t for headlines that said Israel strikes hospital, there wouldn’t be people in the streets outside U.S. embassies threatening our own people and inflaming tensions in the Middle East. So I blame the journalists and the headline writers who rushed to judgment without any facts at all, and worse, actually, they took the word of the Health Ministry in Gaza, which is, of course, a Hamas-run Health Ministry. So it’s kind of like right after 9/11, taking al-Qaeda’s word over the United States about a civilian casualty event in Afghanistan. It’s absolutely irresponsible.”
He continued, “A headline from The New York Times on the website that was subsequently changed, said Israeli Strike Kills hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.”
He added, “When you say Israeli strike kills hundreds in hospital, that is BS. It wasn’t Palestinians. It was Hamas that said it. We wouldn’t credit al-Qaeda. We wouldn’t credit Hamas. Hamas just committed an atrocity. Why would any clear-thinking journalist say, well, Hamas said that the Israelis or the Jews or whoever did something? Why would we put that in the newspaper? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Bash concluded, “I’m just saying that as an American, as someone who cares about American national security as, I see these images of people protesting in the street outside of our embassies and having world leaders cancel a meeting on the president because the media botched this entire story, I think there’s some real analysis that people have to do about journalistic integrity.”
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