MSNBC Quietly Yanks Anti-Israel Muslim Anchors Off-Air

MSNBC has quietly yanked some anti-Israel reporters off the air and out of anchors’ chairs in the aftermath of Hamas’ barbaric October 7 attacks, which killed over 1,200 Israelis. Babies were beheaded and burned. Families were slaughtered, along with pervasive reports of rape and kidnappings. It was a brutal shock to the national psyche of Israel and the world. The viciousness of the atrocities has made most anti-Israel activists shy to voice their true opinion, and rightfully so—they’ll get drowned out by the outrage of decent people. There is no defense for raping young girls and burning babies. And yet, scores of terrorist-sympathizing rallies were held, exposing that these folks aren’t anti-Israel due to political reasons, like their opposition to the so-called occupation of Palestine; they just hate Jewish people.

One of our columnists, Tim Graham, who is the executive editor for MRC’s Newsbusters, wrote about MNSBC’s tweaking of their Israeli coverage after some of their anchors went off the reservation over the weekend:

Media reporter Maxwell Tani at Semafor reports MSNBC has quietly taken three of its Muslim broadcasters "out of the anchor’s chair" since the vicious Hamas attack on Israel last Saturday "amid America’s wave of sympathy for Israeli terror victims."
[…]
Tani reported some staff at MSNBC have been concerned by the moves, feeling "all three hosts have some of the deepest knowledge of the conflict." NBC says the shifts are "coincidental," and the three continue to appear on air to report and provide analysis.
There's also some dishy material about email conflict after an NBC producer organized a support session for Israel with a rabbi. A Velshi producer protested: “There’s no Palestinian representation at this?
[…]
Tani analyzed the conservative media criticism of the al-Jazeera veterans and concluded "The criticism of the three MSNBC hosts — three of the most high-profile Muslim on-air personalities on the network— seems vastly disproportionate to anything they’ve said on air." He seems to be missing the punditry we pointed out on Friday. Like Mohyeldin just spooning up the Hamas spin on Velshi's show: "Hamas is saying, well, if nobody is able to defend, what is happening for Palestinians in the west bank or east Jerusalem, with the home demolitions, the arrests, the children being killed, the desecration of holy sites, if they’re unable to do that, then we only have the ability to do it with military might and crude weapons and military.”
Or Velshi putting on a Palestinian pundit to say "I really want to caution your viewers not to be dragged into the good guy vs bad guy equation. We have to look at the bigger picture.”

MSNBC's @AymanM: Netanyahu leads "the most far, extremist, Jewish nationalist government that it has existed ... What are you going to do? Are you going to re-occupy the Gaza Strip? Repopulate it with settlements? Are you going in there to try to kill every Hamas leader? They’ve… pic.twitter.com/QpZFaa0O9d
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 7, 2023

Ali Velshi, Ayman Mohyeldin, and Medhi Hasan are all former Al-Jazeera staffers. Of course, they’re tiptoeing around or even feeding Hamas propaganda into the airwaves.

MSNBC employs a fleet of former Al Jazeera (Qatar state media) as on-air talent who are now commenting on Israel and making excuses for Hamas

Mehdi Hasan
Ali Velshi
Ayman Mohyeldin https://t.co/uT7D7yGaKY
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) October 9, 2023

While the BBC has often got the story wrong on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, one of their reporters did a good job here highlighting the differences between how Israel and Hamas conduct warfare:

This BBC reporter from Gaza is telling the *truth*. Israeli forces warn civilians to vacate areas they are about to hit, to save innocent lives. That is the difference between democratic Israel and the butchery of Hamas. All people of conscience know instinctively which is right. pic.twitter.com/IHLLSAK0bU
— Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) October 8, 2023