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.

Joy Reid 'Losing Her Mind' Christian Conservative Trump Supporters Exist

According to Joy Reid, host of MSNBC’s The ReidOut, MAGA groups are not only committing idolatry by supporting Donald Trump, but additionally, Trump was a cult leader similar to Charles Manson, David Koresh, and Jim Jones. Sadly, this was not an April Fools prank. Reid spouted paraphrases of Bible stories like the sermon on the mount, the crucifixion of Christ, and the golden calf to emphasize her theory that Trump supporters were heinously sinning by idolizing him and joining his cult. While some obsessed Trump supporters might go so far as to treat Trump as a celebrity, it was preposterous to liken MAGA to the cults created and fostered by mass murderers like Manson, Jones, or Koresh. And, without evidence, Reid suggested Trump was calling himself God: It’s kind of David Koresh. It's kind of Jim Jones. Because those two men started by saying, “You need to come to Jesus.” They started as Christian evangelizers. But eventually, their evangelism said, “No, I get to have your wife. No actually, I get to tell you to kill these federal agents that are outside. I'm asking you to pick up a machine gun and shoot them because I don't want to go to jail.” This is Manson stuff, where you stop saying “Worship God” and you start saying “I am God.” “I am God” is what Trump is saying to his followers. Why are they believing it? Had an acclaimed conservative reporter of the same standing as Reid made such connections of these cults to former President Barack Obama or current President Joe Biden, the reporter probably would have been canceled and fired.     The hilarity of Reid’s accusations was that she continually quoted the Ten Commandments as if calling Trump a cultist resonated with the majority of Christians within the U.S. who not-shockingly happen to be conservative. One of Reid’s guests included Former U.S. Representative [R] David Jolly, who apparently also considered himself an expert on religion. This self-proclaimed Christian boldly asserted that only “people of weak faith are concerned about the actions of government.” Jolly was referring to the outcry from Christians offended by Biden’s recognition of International Trans Day on Easter. How dare Christians allow their faith to impact their political views! Oh, except, according to Jolly, all religions operate this way. Because any person of “strong faith” will put his trust in his invisible deity, he therefore doesn’t need to worry about the actions of the government, since his deity will control the future: The whole notion of faith, of Christian faith, Muslim faith, whatever it might be, is that you are putting your trust in something you cannot see, and you are walking by faith and not by sight. And what Donald Trump is doing is saying, “Wait a minute, let me show you all these reasons you should doubt your faith and you should trust me, and you should follow me.” That is dangerous. I mean, take the trans proclamation, for instance. It is a weakening of faith to suggest that the Christian world should be concerned about that. People of weak faith are concerned about the actions of government. People of strong faith yesterday know they have put their faith in a deity that they have entrusted their lives and the future of the world to regardless of one's faith, it's a concept that is easily understood, this idea of faith. It’s hilarious that Reid would condemn MAGA Christians for supporting Trump and then invite such a “religious expert” like Jolly to speak on this topic, even though he’s somehow unaware that a person’s religion could practically affect her life. “It's making me lose my mind to watch people who call themselves Christians fall down on their knees and worship this man,” Reid said. According to Reid, Trump was also guilty of calling himself the “emperor god,” and being “the head of Rome;” for forcing his followers to follow him instead of Jesus. “He's saying ‘I am the emperor god.’ He's the head of Rome, not Jesus! But he's literally gotten his people to melt down their gold into a calf and worship it,” Reid claimed, without evidence. “Don’t forget the Ten Commandments,” warned Reid, who suddenly became so preoccupied with everyone’s salvation, that is until about ten minutes later when she ignored the sixth commandment to not murder in order to justify her positive position on abortion. How to rectify these contradictions was not really explained, but don’t worry, she ended the conversation with a great one-liner: “Wake up, people, and stay woke!” The full transcript can be read here.  MSNBC's The ReidOut 04/02/24 7:11:29-7:16:36 (…) JOY REID: You know, the difference between religion and a cult is in religion your savior dies for you, as Jesus did. In a cult, you're asked to die for your savior. And, you know, what Donald Trump is doing, it's equal parts the power of positive thinking, which is the church to the extent it's a church he grew up in, but it's also, it’s kind of David Koresh. It's kind of Jim Jones. Because those two men started by saying, “You need to come to Jesus.” They started as Christian evangelizers. But eventually, their evangelism said, “No, I get to have your wife. No actually, I get to tell you to kill these federal agents that are outside. I'm asking you to pick up a machine gun and shoot them because I don't want to go to jail.” This is Manson stuff, where you stop saying “Worship God” and you start saying “I am God.” “I am God” is what Trump is saying to his followers. Why are they believing it? DAVID JOLLY: Yeah, Joy. In a lighthearted way, you’d simply say Donald Trump is jealous of Jesus. All the attention given to Jesus Christ by the Christians of the world yesterday. But look, this conversation is going pretty deep, and I think you put your thumb on something in this conversation very important. Donald Trump is preying, with an “E Y” on the fallibility of faith. Right? The whole notion of faith, of Christian faith, Muslim faith, whatever it might be, is that you are putting your trust in something you cannot see, and you are walking by faith and not by sight. And what Donald Trump is doing is saying, “Wait a minute, let me show you all these reasons you should doubt your faith and you should trust me, and you should follow me.” That is dangerous. I mean, take the trans proclamation, for instance. It is a weakening of faith to suggest that the Christian world should be concerned about that. People of weak faith are concerned about the actions of government. People of strong faith yesterday know they have put their faith in a deity that they have entrusted their lives and the future of the world to regardless of one's faith, it's a concept that is easily understood, this idea of faith. And Donald Trump seizes on the fallibility and creates doubt and then suggests he's the one, he alone can fix all the problems you face, when it requires an abandonment of the deity that you have previously put your trust in for those fixes. REID: Right, because democracy is about we collectively fix the problems through a government we elect. He's saying no, that's not the way you do it, Jim Wallis. The irony of all of this, of trying to compare yourself to Jesus, and the Christ is not his last name, it means the Messiah. The reason that when the people that he was ostensibly hoping to lead, you know, or even not even asking to lead, but was saying I am an exemplar to my people, one of the reasons they rejected him on the cross is he was not a warrior god. He was a God who said that, “I worship my father God, not the Roman emperor god.” And because he wouldn't renounce the idea that the empire, the emperor was god, and that he said, “No, my father is God,” they said “Well, we're going to kill you, we’re going to crucify you.” Donald Trump is the opposite of that. He's saying “I am the emperor god.” He's the head of Rome, not Jesus! But he's literally gotten his people to melt down their gold into a calf and worship it. Another sin of people who, if you believe that people should’ve followed Jesus and didn't, that was the other thing, “We can't see your works, you're not a visible God. We want a visible god.” Trump is saying “No, I'm a visible god.” He's literally an idolater, Jim! It's making me lose my mind to watch people who call themselves Christians fall down on their knees and worship this man. JIM WALLIS: This is where we have to understand bad religion has always distorted politics. And some say the only answer to bad religion is no religion. I think the answer to bad religion is true faith. And so, what I'm trying to do is say what did Jesus say? He said, “You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The opposite of truth there for Jesus is not lying but captivity. And so many people you talk about here are just captive. They're stuck. They're embedded in this false religion. Jesus said, you know, “we are made in the image of God.” God said, Genesis Ch. 1, first book of the Bible, which means any attempt to take away the vote of anyone because of the color of their skin or anything else, is an assault on imago dei. So, I want to get back to what the text says. I want to let Jesus do the talking. And then I want to say, do you believe it? Or not? REID: That's right. Amen. And let's—don't forget the Ten Commandments, which Jesus did not refute, the Old Testament, the Torah. The Ten Commandments start with “I am God and thou shalt have no other god before me.” And if you actually are a Christian, you should have no other god before God. Donald Trump is not God. He's not Jesus. He's just a politician who doesn't want to go to prison and he's selling you crap sneakers to make you pay his legal bills when he's supposedly a billionaire. It is a scam; it is a cult. Wake up! [Claps hands] People and stay woke! (…)