A day after the State Department’s Jen Psaki put the blame on Hamas for Israel’s killing of four boys on a Gaza beach– and NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin mocked her for doing so–during yesterday’s State Department briefing, she shifted her tone re the same slaughter. At 18:00 in the video above, AP’s Matt Lee bears down.
Matt Lee: — yesterday you didn’t have a lot to say about the incident on the beach in Gaza. I’m wondering if you have more to say about it today now that things are a little bit more clear about what happened, but also in general whether you think – well, what you think of the restraint or lack of restraint being shown by either side in this.
MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm. Well, as the violence continues, and it’s continued overnight, there were reports – that we don’t have confirmed – of additional children, I think, since then, unfortunately. But we are increasingly concerned about the safety and security of civilians on both sides. We continue to urge all parties to do all they can to protect civilians, and we have been heartbroken by the high civilian death toll in Gaza, including the death of four innocent Palestinian children as they were playing on a beach in Gaza just yesterday.
It was – the reports were horrifying, the photos were horrifying, the video was horrifying. The tragic event makes clear that Israel must take every possible step to meet its standards for protecting civilians from being killed. We will continue to underscore that point to Israel; the Secretary has made that point directly as well…
QUESTION: does that mean that you don’t believe that Israel is doing – is practicing what it preaches in this, that they have not shown the restraint that you have called for?
MS. PSAKI: Well, Matt, you have seen – you may have seen, but I can flag for you – that they have – the Israelis have expressed their sorrow and regret in these cases. What we’re asking for is a redoubling of efforts moving forward to prevent civilian casualties, given the events of the last couple of days.
QUESTION: So you do not believe they have done enough to prevent civilian casualties – or you do?
MS. PSAKI: We believe that certainly there’s more that can be done.
QUESTION: And you said that the Secretary has made this point to Prime Minister Netanyahu and —
MS. PSAKI: Yes.
QUESTION: Was that today? Have they spoken?
MS. PSAKI: Over the last 24 hours. I think they spoke yesterday.
The Washington Post says that with this “pointed warning,” the U.S. State Department is pivoting on the character of the Israeli onslaught. Note that later in the briefing, Psaki cites a Shimon Peres statement about the killings of Palestinian civilians. Not a denunciation, just a handwringing. Psaki’s comments would also seem to be in the category of handwringing.
I’ve just said in reply to Citizen that nothing much changes. Here we have a little mousy squeak of distress in the face of a terrible, disproportionate slaughter. Perhaps even that would not have happened last time round but the changes and developments we see are so slight, so transient.
Obama just wrapping up a news conference, and unless I missed it, I did not hear a single question from the zionist media, regarding the civilian casualties caused by Israel’s wrath and defending itself. It was all about the plane crash, even through Obama made a few token statements of the war.
in this age of mass media hyper-coverage I am sure it wasn’t lost on those who tally death tolls and so-called ‘proportionality’ to a concept of fairness that in the course of a few seconds yesterday more people were brutally blown to bits at 33,000ft then have been killed in the campaign to force Hamas to stop firing its missiles at Israel. It appears that advanced Russian arms were used either by mistake or not but I doubt there will be any worldwide outrage on the streets for the almost 300 innocent victims.
However-a strong case could be made to blame Zionism for being the root cause of the problems leading to the atrocity .
Oh I know, I know, I’m a ‘hasbarist’ engaging in ‘whataboutism’ and have no feelings at all for the 100s of dead and injured as its impossible for a Zionist to feel anything remotely human.
“Israel must do more to prevent civilian deaths”
Also in the series
“Paedos must do more to protect children”.
Israel has been slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese civilians since Day 1. Deir Yassin, Qibya, Sabra and Shatila, Qana, etc
The bots are sure that if they kill enough vermin the Arabs will do as they are told. They have to get a Zionist lesson. And for the audacity of asking the siege of Gaza to be lifted, Israel has to kill at least 300 people. Otherwise Israel loses its deterrence.
Asking Israel to go easy on the butchery is nonsense.
“MS. PSAKI: Well, Matt, you have seen – you may have seen, but I can flag for you – that they have – the Israelis have expressed their sorrow and regret in these cases. What we’re asking for is a redoubling of efforts moving forward to prevent civilian casualties, given the events of the last couple of days.”
Q. Are you saying Israel is only applying half the efforts required to avoid killing civilians.
R. Duh aaah, hmmm,well aaah hmmm blah blah blah.