Posted on 11/19/2012 10:23:05 AM PST by Ooh-Ah
(Sharona Schwartz) Beyond its military operation targeting the Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, Israel is invested in an intense media campaign to make sure its side of the story is being heard overseas. But that’s not always easy to do.
In an interview with Israel’s top envoy to the United States on Saturday, MSNBC provided yet another example of how much work Israeli officials face in their effort to pass through the filter of the mainstream media and present their side of the story.
MSNBC’s Mara Schiavocampo began her interview of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren straightforwardly enough, asking “What would be the trigger for a ground operation? What’s the red line here?”
Oren answered, “You have the equivalent of what would be about 170 million Americans under bomb shelters. If Hamas continues to escalate we will take the necessary and legitimate measures to defend our citizens.”
Schiavocampo’s second question might be considered more controversial, positing the argument that long-range rockets carrying warheads weighing between 20 and 90 kilograms — 46 to 198 pounds — aren’t actually dangerous to human life. She asked:
“Living under the threat of rocket attack is certainly a psychological trauma. But what would you say to those who argue that the rockets are essentially very ineffective, they rarely do damage and that the response from Israelis is disproportional to the threat they’re under.”
Oren answered she might want to pose that question to the three Israelis killed by a rocket in Kiryat Malachi on Thursday (see TheBlaze’s story here and Glenn Beck’s segment looking at media bias and profiling the victims here). Oren suggested Schiavocampo envisage what would happen if Hamas were bombing America. He said:
“Imagine if one rocket had fallen in the United States and not now since the year 2009, our last operation, we’ve had something in the vicinity of 8,000 rockets fall on the State of Israel. That’s more than twice all of the German rockets that fell on London during World War II. And you saw how the British and Americans reacted to that.”
Schiavocampo then posited that because the number of rocket attacks on Israel has dramatically increased since 2009, Israel’s policy has been a “failure.” By way of comparison, she did not attribute the increase in attacks to other possibilities including: Hamas feeling more emboldened since its ideological ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, took control of next-door Egypt or that its ties have only grown stronger with Iran, which provides its long-range Fajr-5 missiles. She asked Oren:
“You mentioned the amount of rocket attacks that have been seen in Israel. In 2009 that number was about 200 and this year it’s been about 700 despite the fact that we’ve been down this road again that Israel has responded with military force in the past. So does this show that Israel ‘s policy towards Gaza has been a failure?”
Oren said that after 12,000 rocket attacks in the past 12 years on Israeli civilians, “We have no option and nor would any other country in the world have an option but to defend our citizens by all necessary and legitimate means.”
Watch the MSNBC interview with Michael Oren here:
http://politics.kfyi.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=104707&article=10583924
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news
The simple answer to this question is “So, if I understand you correctly, you’d be much happier if Jews were being killed, right? Would that fulfill your sense of fairness?”
Sometimes words just escape me. Who is this imbicile? Would she like it if we began pelting here studio with rockets? Would she not worry? I bet she would be the first to hit the silk.
Perhaps we can get Mara to stand out in a football field while we launch a few RPGs at her liberal ass.
I hope Israel destroys the new Palestine and whoever is stupid enough to help them. Nuke them from Orbit...it’s the only way to be sure.
The fact that this filthy, vile network is allowed to broadcast daily in the United States shows how far down the rat-hole we have fallen.
These cretins are totally shameless
“Since the life of one Son of the Prophet is worth that of a thousand pigs and monkeys, the damage is quite disproportional.” /not quite sarc
OMG- I can just hear her little brain at work: “but they are only such tiny little bombs they shoot at you, and you are so mean to fight back at them...”
So, can we send a few over to HIS house?
Hey I have an idea, someone should throw a bunch of rockets on this lady’s house and see how she likes it
In any fight, the one who punch’s hardest is usually the winner.
Only a fool or Hamas would start a fight with a bigger opponent.
Are the attacks disproportional? Maybe they are, but obviously Hamas enjoys being hit, since all they have to do to stop it is stop sending rockets into Israel.
I thought the idea of war was to WIN, not to provide fairness for the media's sensitivities.
Let’s see, some animals killed 3,000 people, destroyed 2 buildings and damaged another.
Was our destruction of 2 of the countries that supported and sponsored these terrorists, also excessive?
Since she thinks thousands of Muslim terrorist rockets don’t do any harm, perhaps she’d like to volunteer HER house as their new target?
Hey...that's the Chicago way. Obama oughta like it.
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"
sounds like we just got a volunteer to be “embedded”...
PING!!!!!!!!!!!!
SMH
The sheer cluelessness (intentional or otherwise) of these “journalists” confounds me. Do they not understand the point of these rocket attacks is to terrorize?
Hitler’s V-1’s and to an extent, the V-2’s, had little real strategic ability on Britain’s ability to produce armaments or field troops. Nor did the conventional-warhead SCUDs fired by Saddam Hussein have the capability to defeat coalition forces in Desert Shield/Storm. Yet both tyrants launched endless waves of them, because they were intended to terrify and demoralize. Your own citizens living in fear, never knowing when they might have to dash to a shelter, or knowing if they’re going to make it to safety in time (and not every does) is more than enough provocation, I’d say.
A disproportionate response is the appropriate response.
perfect!!
Not playing teeter-totter Napoleon. The results are not supposed to be ‘balanced’. Really the species is headed for a die off.
What is wrong with these idiots?
This always reminds me of John Kerry saying that in a war we should give a proportional response. So if someone punched me in the face with 1/3 force I should also do the same with an equal response? Uh, no. If someone strikes you, you return with everything in your current arsenal. The people are unbelievable!
OK Mara, how’s about you stand at ground zero and let one of those 121mm or 140mm babies zero in on you, let’s see what’s left of your pathetic being.
To the liberal US MEdia 7 months pregnant Jewish mother killed at the breakfast table in front of her 2 and 4 yr old children was “minor damage”?
Let me get this straight Mara, if more Jews had been killed by these rockets, then it would be OK for the Jews to fight back?
Or how many more Jews need to die for you to be OK with them fighting back?
I’m sure Israel will be hiring her as deputy for proportionality
Except for the family that was killed by a rocket. Idiots. I hate MSNBC.
Please, oh please, let some group start launching rockets at MSNBC. We’ll see what those lilly-livered chicken-lipped marshmallow-brained idiots react.
I can only imagine the pile of p*ss and Obamastuff these dorks would deposit if they just heart a firecracker go off nearby.
Who listens to MSNBC except like minded loons. Nothing said on that channel should be taken seriously. It has just as responsible reporting as moveon.org. Both are as good and useful as used toilet paper.
Maria Schiavocampo - fulfills some need to the network or is another Affirmative Action Hero.
I despise “disproportional response.” It is so much new speak, pc, bs that makes me want to throw something at my computer or tv screen every time some whiny liberal mentions it.
Somehow, attacks on Christians and Jews is fine, but any response is “disproportionate.” Bull, if these heathens lob rockets at Israel, Israel should bury all of them. Get them to their supposed paradise quicker. Same in Afghanistan and Iraq. The hell with it, take the gloves off and put them down permanently.
They will be the first to the guillotine.
Obama: ‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun’
Our Most Omnipotent and Fearless Leader and Ardent Golfer had voiced these words many times!
If MSNBC wishes less children killed tell them to stay away from rocket launch sites.
5.56mm
Initially, I was willing to cut her a break when she asked the “what would you say to those who think...” question. There’s nothing wrong with urging the interviewee to address those concerns...
BUT...
When she proceeded to opine that the increasing number of missiles was a result of a failed Israeli policy, she broke it for me. American reporters often sit in and “report” from comfy hotel rooms. They can’t begin to identify with the experiences of those truly affected by conflict.
Rocket Mara Schiavocampo home the same amount.
According to the code of ethics I adhere to, The initiator of force, nor anyone else, gets to decide what level of force that the defender gets to use. We didn’t win world war II by a proportional response to the Japanese and the Germans. We blew the S&(t out of them until they no longer had any interest in fighting us and that is exactly what the Israelis will have to do.
So 13,000 Hamas missiles launched by Muslim terrorists and at an accelerating rate in this decade is chump change because the victim targets are Israeli civilians? Jewish lives are cheap to MSNBC staff.
Obamedia
Tv. For the 47 percent
Or just a bump in the road as Dear Leader would say.
we need a site or a party which calls these idiots out once and for all.
Name names, show their biased, run ADs and let the country know how corrupt this thing we call the media are.
There are about 1,200,000,000 Muslims in the World.
There are about 12,000,000 Jews in the World.
For every Jew killed, to be “FAIR”, the Jews have to kill 100 Muslims.
Disproportional? I think the Israelis are obligated to kill every Gazan for “Proportionality” to have been achieved.
:-)
She should be on BET
I had to re-read that 2x. I *almost* spit-out my lunch.
Soooooo, if someone’s wildly shooting at you, with a “mere” .22lr round and misses 5-of-6x, but only flesh-wounds you, there’s no sound reason to return fire and kill the POS, before s/he reloads the revolver’s cylinder? Her empty head is a target-rich environment.
Schiavocampo = DUMBASS LIB-DEM MORON!
Geez, I wonder how we would react if Mexico started to fire rockets at us?
(of course, under Obama who knows)
hamas and the muslim brotherhood are the terrorist organizations of Iran and MSLSD is their propaganda outlet...along with the BBC and CNN and ABC and CBS. Israel is trying to get their message out through all possible means, but if I were them I would just stick to Fox News and social media. The IDF videos are very powerful and any sane person can see how far Israel goes to limit civilian deaths, even when those same “civilians” look the other way when hamas fires rockets at Israel.
I have to say that I don’t like questions that begin, “What do you say to those who say/think....” My response would be: “Gather them up and I will address their concerns face to face,” or “Just who are those who say/think this? Are you one of them?”
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