MSNBC Compares Netanyahu to Serbian War Criminal, Claim ‘Genocide’

Last evening on The ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid and her guest, author Peter Maass, compared the war in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the genocidal Yugoslav Wars and Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milošević. Maass, a journalist who covered the war in Bosnia, described how the media reports he has been reading about Gaza sound very similar to what he witnessed in the 1990s. Reid opened the interview with the question, “Why do you say that it is genocide?” To which Maass quickly specified that he thinks the amount of evidence surrounding this issue “should be investigated by war crimes prosecutors for possible genocide charges,” which was very different from, “I believe this is a genocide.”     To further push the “Israel is committing genocide” narrative, Reid named Slobodan Milošević, the former Serbian president convicted of war crimes, and compared him to the Israeli PM, Netanyahu: “Do you think that because he is the person that is prolonging this and doesn't seem to want to stop it, could Benjamin Netanyahu wind up in a position like Mr. Karadžić, like Mr. Milošević, and actually charged…” For context, in the Yugoslav Wars, Milošević was indicted for sixty-six counts of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo. Groups of Serbs, Jews, Muslims, and Croats were ethnically cleansed from these areas in series of horrific war crimes. In contrast, the war in Gaza started because Hamas, an anti-Israel Palestinian terrorist group, attacked Israel in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the area and replace it with the Islamic Brotherhood. Hamas should be compared to Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, and Ratko Mladić, not Israel. Not only did Reid compare Netanyahu to a genocidal political leader, but she also claimed that Netanyahu has “prolonged” the war by refusing to ceasefire. So far, nearly every multilateral ceasefire proposition has been agreed to by Israel and refused by Hamas. Recently, Hamas announced that they wouldn’t be able to turn over 40 of the hostages they took because they were already dead. During the interview, Maass was reluctant to confirm that he thought Israel was committing genocide. “Is it genocide? It’s complicated.” Instead, he referred to what he’s seen on the media, apparently unaware that the statistics that the mainstream media uses are from Hamas-controlled organizations. “I saw genocide happen in front of my eyes. Now, what I'm seeing happening in front of my eyes in the way that you are, and others are, because foreign reporters aren’t allowed into Gaza by Israel, is disturbingly evocative,” he demurred. Adding: “All of these kinds of incidents that I saw before and that we’ve seen in other military situations and other genocides we have seen there…What counts is really what war crimes prosecutors, war crime judges might decide. And that’s kinda what I think needs to happen.” To call for an investigation into Israel’s methods of war was one thing, to compare it to the ethnic cleansers of the Yugoslav Wars was another. Earlier in the interview, Maass mentioned that his great-grandfather, while not a Zionist, helped Jewish people be relocated out of Russia and into what was then called Palestine. Reid and Maass attempted to use this example to explain how Zionism was wrong and peace could be attained between the groups if the state of Israel did not exist. Yet, this conversation completely ignored how Hamas’s goal was to remove the same people that Maass’s family helped put in Israel. Hamas does not want to live in peace with Jewish people. It does not support religious freedom and removing the state of Israel will not satisfy them. Like the ethnic cleanser, Milošević, Hamas wants to eradicate the people of Israel, not just the nation. Maass has also been indirectly supporting this narrative on CNN and other major liberal media.   Veteran war correspondent @maassp argues that international courts should examine whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. What’s the legal standard? And is the evidence there? Plus how he responds to accusations that the suggestion is “blood libel” pic.twitter.com/nGrnsP0XTU — Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) April 10, 2024   Read the full transcript here: The ReidOut 4/11/24 7:55:23-7:59:44 (...) JOY REID: You have covered wars, including in Bosnia. And so, you have something to compare it to. Why do you call—Because it’s very controversial among a lot of people to call what is happening in Gaza genocide. Not everyone likes to hear that. Why do you say that it is genocide? PETER MAASS:  Well, I say, I was very specific about that. I mean, I said that there is, like, a lot of evidence indicating that this is genocide and it should be investigated by war crimes prosecutors for possible genocide charges. And indeed, the international court of justice is looking into that now. There are other venues, international criminal court, that could also do the same. And the reason that I said that is because when I covered the war in Bosnia, I also covered military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan where I saw a lot of violence. But in Bosnia, in particular, I saw people shot by snipers. I saw civilian homes get bombed from the hills by the Serbs who were besieging Sarajevo. Aid shipments halted. Water, electricity, cut off. Visited the main hospital in Sarajevo. It would get bombed. I knew people there who were killed. I wrote about it at the time. And all of these things that I saw in Sarajevo, in Bosnia when I was reporting there in the 1990s, which was a long time ago, were very similar to what I have been seeing, what we all have been seeing in Gaza. And, in the case of Bosnia, there were war crimes trials and there are a number of people who are in prison now on atrocities, convictions, on genocide— REID: Slobodan Milošević. MAASS: He died while awaiting trial, but Radovan Karadžić, who was the Bosnia Serb political leader, Ratko Mladić  the Bosnian Serb military leader, they are in prison for the rest of their lives on charges that include genocide. I was covering, I saw genocide happen in front of my eyes. Now, what I'm seeing happening in front of my eyes in the way that you are, and others are, because foreign reporters aren’t allowed into Gaza by Israel, is disturbingly evocative. All of these kinds of incidents that I saw before and that we’ve seen in other military situations and other genocides we have seen there. Is it genocide? It’s complicated. REID: Yeah, it’s a legal question. MAASS: It’s very difficult. We can talk about it forever, but our opinions don't count. What counts is really what war crimes prosecutors, war crime judges might decide. And that’s kinda what I think needs to happen. REID: The things we’ve heard, you write about the grandmother who’s holding her six-year-old grandson's hand and is, you know, shot by a sniper. We’ve seen on social media, Israeli soldiers, IDF soldiers, uploading images of themselves looting, taking things from Palestinian homes. We’ve seen mosques blown up, schools blown up. The deliberate destruction Al-Shifa and other hospitals. Is that the kinda thing—And I think the most egregious, or maybe not the most egregious, the most shocking thing people are seeing now is the mass starvation. That’s the kind of thing you’re saying deserves an investigation. MAASS: Yeah. And, I mean, the number of children in particular who have been killed, more than 13,000 children, this is a number that really isn’t disputed by anybody of any reputation. More than 13,000 children have been killed in six months in Gaza by Israeli bombs or Israeli bullets, et cetera. And, when I was covering the war in Bosnia, and I mean this was a four- yearlong war. There was something around the order of 6- or 7,000 children killed over the course of four years. This is six months. And it’s just, it’s shocking. It’s hard to kill, I think, that many people, that many children without making mistakes that are not random. REID: Yeah. Do you think that because he is the person that is prolonging this and doesn't seem to want to stop it, could Benjamin Netanyahu wind up in a position like Mr. Karadžić, like Mr. Milošević, and actually charged, is in theory, is that something you can even, it boggles the mind to think about it, is it something you could see happening? MAASS: It boggles the mind to think about it, but if you asked me in 1992, ’93, ’94, ’95, could I ever envisioned Slobodan Milošević extradited to a war crimes tribunal, in the hay, by his own people. Same for Radovan Karadžić, same for Ratko Mladić, I would have said “I don't know what you're smoking.” And it is kind of unimaginable now. What’s less unimaginable is the possibility of actual war crimes charges being filed against him, and IDF generals and others. It’s always possible. There are war crimes trials, you know, happening, you know, today, eh, with respect to many conflicts.

NBC Whines About New Yorkers Feeling Unsafe Despite ‘Most Metrics’

With November fast approaching, liberal NBC News was desperate to do everything they could to stack the deck in favor of Democrats, particularly when it came to downplaying how their weak-on-crime policies were hurting average Americans. During Tuesday’s Today, senior national correspondent Tom Llamas lamented that the residents of New York City felt unsafe despite how “most metrics” claimed otherwise. He also noted that bail reform was a driving problem but didn’t mention that it was a Democratic brainchild. Llamas seemed confused why New Yorkers would feel unsafe if the reports showed that the crime rate was diminishing. “According to the NYPD, crime is actually coming down in most metrics, but when you talk to New Yorkers or read the papers it feels like a much different story,” he said. He later suggested that the crime numbers were just not going down fast enough. What he refused to mention were the crime stats that were going up. According to a NYPD report from March 2024, “Felony assault and robbery each saw increases of 3.6% and 4.8%, respectively, and the number of reported rapes increased by three incidents.”     NBC blamed the perception of rising crime on viral TikToks or Instagram reels from New Yorkers who either witnessed crime on the subways or personally were attacked in public. According to NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, the culprit for such public attacks in the city is the increase of repeat offenders and so-called “bail reform” efforts: CABAN: We're seeing that we're locking up the same people over and over again…We lock someone up, district attorney puts a bail on them. The judges let them go walk across the streets again. It's a broken system. With an appalled tone, Llamas called Caban’s statements “forceful,” and seemed shocked that a person would consider bail reform laws to be “ineffective,” even after the NYPD commissioner explained plainly how the system was dysfunctional. One clip that NBC shared was of Stephanie Diller, the widow of Officer Diller who was recently killed in in the line of duty. After the clip of Diller speaking at her husband’s funeral begging the city’s government to protect the police department, Llamas had the gall to ask Caban if “she was right?” STEPHANIE DILLER: How many more police officers and how many more families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them? LLAMAS: Is she right? CABAN: Absolutely. You know that's the one thing that no police commissioner wants to do during their tenure is bury one their own, whether it's a family of blood or a family of blue. It hurts to the core. Was the widow who was begging her city to protect its police right to do so, or should she have shut up and sat down? Predictably, Llamas attempted to separate the Democratic party from this failure by pretending that it was “bail reform advocates” not the Democratic party and the Democratic governor of New York that pushed these laws through initially. Even the governor, embarrassed by the ineffectiveness of the laws, “has seen enough recently” and has proposed “reforms to hold violent criminals accountable.” Read the full transcript here: NBC’s Today 4/9/24 8:05:22-8:08:20 CRAIG MELVIN: Meanwhile, recent videos of unprovoked violence here in New York and the killing of an NYPD officer, are fueling concerns about public safety. And this morning, in an NBC News exclusive, the city’s top cop is addressing them. We sat down with our senior national correspondent, Tom Llamas. Tom, good morning to you. TOM LLAMAS: Hey, Craig, good morning to you. Good morning to you guys as well. According to the NYPD, crime is actually coming down in most metrics, but when you talk to New Yorkers or read the papers it feels like a much different story. I sat down with the commissioner of the NYPD who rose from the ranks of a beat cop in the South Bronx to now leading a police department larger than most armies. (cuts to interview) LLAMAS:  From mayhem on the subways to unprovoked attacks on women, to a young police officer shot and killed in the line of duty, these headlines and viral videos paint a picture of a big city with a big problem. New York City went from clean and safe to dirty and dangerous. What happened in New York City? EDWARD CABAN (NYPD, commissioner): January 2022. New York City was up in crime over 48 percent. Up in violence. And we looked at just making more felony arrests. And slowly by slowly, the violence began to come down. LLAMAS: Edward Caban is in charge of the NYPD, and its more than 35,000 police officers. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, he says crime is trending down in New York City, but not fast enough, because of repeat offenders. CABAN: We're seeing that we're locking up the same people over and over again. LLAMAS: In his most forceful statements yet, the NYPD commissioner calling bail reform laws ineffective. CABAN: We lock someone up, district attorney puts a bail on them. The judges let them go walk cross the streets again. It's a broken system. LLAMAS: A system that has come into sharper focus after the killing of Detective Jonathan Diller, allegedly, by two career criminals with long records. STEPAHNIE DILLER: How many more police officers and how many more families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them? LLAMAS: Is she right? CABAN: Absolutely. You know that's the one thing that no police commissioner wants to do during their tenure is bury one their own, whether it's a family of blood or a family of blue. It hurts to the core. NARRATOR: Part of commissioner Caban's mission now, separating perception versus reality. According to NYPD stats, overall crime is down in the city and subways, but that's not how many New Yorkers feel about their own safety. CABAN:  I want my legacy to be that New York is felt, not only that they were safe, but that they felt safe too. If they don't feel that way, then I'm not doing my job. (cuts back to Today) LLAMAS: Now, bail reform advocates argue it helps the poor who are disproportionately jailed because they don't have the means to post bail. But in New York, it seems the governor, who is a Democrat, has seen enough recently, announcing reforms to hold violent criminals accountable. Guys. MELVIN: Fascinating conversation, Tom. Thank you.