PBS NewsHour White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez joined CNN’s Inside Politics panel on Wednesday to discuss how progressives are reacting to the Israeli-Hamas War and to suggest that Democrats who refused to condemn terrorism did so, not because they hate Israel, but because they are simply critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Host Dana Bash pointed out, “not everybody in the Western world said it was okay to criticize these terrorists who went into Israel, including some Democratic members of Congress. There was a resolution that passed overwhelming last week standing with Israel, but criticizing the notion of terrorism about, you know, beheading babies and there were a number of Democrats who either voted no or voted present and you see them on the screen there.”
Referencing the nine no and six present votes, Bash concluded, “And they might be a, sort of, small minority within the Democratic Party, but they represent a very vocal group of progressives out in the world, in America right now.”
Barron-Lopez apparently thinks her job is to defend the fanatic fifteen, “I think that some of those Democrats would say the reason they voted no in part was because of their very strong criticisms of the Israeli government. Not because they don't think that it was a massacre, which some of those Democrats have said that it was a massacre that occurred and condemned the action of Hamas.”
As for why they didn’t vote for it, Barron-Lopez hypothesized, “but that because they are very strongly against the actions of Netanyahu and what they see as his even degradation of Israel's democracy and then his forceful attack now on Gazans and civilians.”
What “degradation of Israel’s democracy”? If Barron-Lopez is talking about Netanyahu’s judicial reform, it should be noted these progressives come from the same wing of the party that wants to expand our Supreme Court. It would also not speak well of the fifteen if they put their feelings about another country’s supreme court before a simple vote to condemn terrorism.
Any suggestion that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians for its own sake would also imply that this isn’t about Netanyahu, but an ideological anti-Israel stance that thinks the terrorism of October 7 needs to be put in “context.”
Here is a transcript for the November 1 show:
CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash
11/1/2023
12:17 PM ET
DANA BASH: One thing I would point out is that not everybody in the Western world said it was okay to criticize these terrorists who went into Israel, including some Democratic members of Congress. There was a resolution that passed overwhelming last week standing with Israel, but criticizing the notion of terrorism about, you know, beheading babies and there were a number of Democrats who either voted no or voted present and you see them on the screen there. And they might be a, sort of, small minority within the Democratic Party, but they represent a very vocal group of progressives out in the world, in America right now.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And I think that some of those Democrats would say the reason they voted no in part was because of their very strong criticisms of the Israeli government. Not because they don't think that it was a massacre, which some of those Democrats have said that it was a massacre that occurred and condemned the action of Hamas, but that because they are very strongly against the actions of Netanyahu and what they see as his even degradation of Israel's democracy and then his forceful attack now on Gazans and civilians, but you’re right Dana, the president may not have shifted his position, but he has shifted his rhetoric and he started to say more and more, and so have his national security advisers and so has Secretary Blinken, all of them across the board have started to say more and more that they think there could be a time for a pause in the fighting. They will not call for a ceasefire at all at this point, but they think there should be a pause. John Kirby of the NSC just said that yesterday because they are very aware of the fact that seeing these dead civilians in Gaza is something that they don't want to see and they don’t want to--.
