On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” host and NBC News Chief Washington Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell stated that Israel lacks a clear plan for Gaza in the future, “And that just takes attention away from the fact that Hamas keeps rejecting these deals as well, and, again, has.”
Mitchell said, “[T]here’s so much anger against Israel right now, from the White House, unspoken, from our allies who say they were outraged, Jordan, France, Qatar, others, by these repeated attacks, which they see as, first of all, evidence that Israel is not thinking about the hostage and ceasefire negotiations, which were supposed to have come to a head on Thursday, when they took out the lead negotiator.”
She added, “There’s another military factor here, which is, I’m hearing criticism from retired generals on the U.S. side that they’re not clearing and holding, which is what, actually, despite the lack of success, we ended up doing during the surge in Iraq. So, they’re, again, in Khan Yunis, they’re, again, in Gaza City, the fact that they keep moving people out and then going back in.”
Later, MSNBC Contributor and former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes said, “Netanyahu doesn’t have a political objective that meets the kind of security reality on the ground there. And so, you need some kind of coalescence, not just around a ceasefire deal, but around an understanding of what is Gaza going to look like three months from now, six months from now, one year from now, and we just haven’t had that out of the Israeli government yet.”
Mitchell responded, “And that just takes attention away from the fact that Hamas keeps rejecting these deals as well, and, again, has.”
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