‘I Can’t Be Sympathetic!’ Israeli Mom Whose Kids Were Taken By Hamas Goes Off When Andrea Mitchell Asks About ‘Attacks Against Gaza’
An Israeli mother whose kids were abducted by Hamas went off when MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked for her thoughts on Israel’s “attacks against Gaza” in response, lashing out at the notion there’s any “symmetry” involved.
Hamas launched an unprecedented coordinated terrorist assault on Israel Saturday morning that began with a massive barrage of rocket fire from Gaza and attacks by Hamas gunmen on border communities and continued with indescribable horrors that are still unfolding.
On Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Mitchell interviewed a mother who is experiencing one of those horrors — her 12 and 16-year-old sons were abducted by Hamas terrorists while she was on the phone with them.
In a stunning exchange, Mitchell asked the woman how she feels about the Israeli counterstrikes, and got an earful as the mother said she used to tell her children to sympathize with children in Gaza — but “can’t be sympathetic anymore”:
ANDREA MITCHELL: You want them to be with people they know so that they’re not alone there. But what are your feelings about the the the attacks against Gaza right now? How can the government–
ISRAELI MOTHER: I must say– Look, you’re looking first for a symmetrical situation. And I must say it isn’t! If you were dealing with a war who is between two countries, countries don’t take children hostages. I’m sorry. It’s against the laws of war. It’s against humanity. It’s against anything that we all believe in.
Every time we had missiles shot at us, I used to say to my children that they should be sympathetic towards the children of Gaza because they suffer a lot more than they do. I’m not sure I still believe in it now.
And I must say the only worry I have now from the bombings in Gaza is the fact that my children are there!
ANDREA MITCHELL: Understandably…
ISRAELI MOTHER: I can’t be sympathetic anymore. I can’t be sympathetic to animal human beings — well, they’re not really human beings — who came into my house, broke everything, stole everything, took my children from their bedrooms and took them to the Gaza Strip. Israel never done that, and it will never do. So there is no symmetry! I’m sorry.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Do you want the government–.
ISRAELI MOTHER: I’m sorry to be so emotional.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Do you want the government to put the top priority on getting the hostages out before they retaliate–
ISRAELI MOTHER: I want my government to put it on the first priority. And I want the world to put it on first priority. I think any mother in the world should try and imagine her children under that situation and then think again. That’s all I want. I want the world to ask them to release children, to release elderlies, to release the civilians they took. There is no reason to hold them there. They are not soldiers. They are not part of the war. And they have nothing to do with it. We gave them work permits. We really believed that this was the way to move their economy, to reunite, to to reconnect these two so-called countries. This is not the way a country behaves. This is a way that a terror organization behaves. I’m sorry. So, again, there’s no symmetry.
Watch above via MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.
