Scarborough: Netanyahu is 'Responsible for the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust'

SCARBOROUGH: “Willie, I think for many supporters of Israel, right message in many ways, wrong messenger. Certainly, him defending himself in the lead-up up to the attacks, that’s not a message that the overwhelming majority of people in Israel believe. There’s no way they could believe that. He left Israelis completely vulnerable to the most vicious attack since the Holocaust. So, again, I think it’s wildly inappropriate for him to — but, of course, it’s what he is going to do. But to somehow try to tangle — entangle Israel’s survival with his own. But, again, many things he said, true. We wouldn’t have talked about a cease-fire on December 8th, 1941, or on September 12th, 2001. Also, very true that Hamas has hidden behind civilians their entire career. We said this the day after the attacks. We said, when a Jew dies, that’s a victory for Hamas. When a Palestinian dies, that’s a victory for Hamas. They are just excited about Palestinians dying, maybe even more than they are when Jews die, because they consider that a victory. That’s why they hide in hospitals. That’s why they hide in apartment buildings. That’s why they hide behind civilians. So, again, I think most supporters of Israel would agree with Benjamin Netanyahu in many ways, except the Benjamin Netanyahu part. He was responsible for that — not just directly, by Israel sleeping and the defense forces sleeping and him obsessing over wars against the courts instead of war against Hamas, and also because what he did for well over a decade, doing everything he could to avoid peace talks that would lead to a two-state solution. He was so obsessed with the West Bank and so obsessed to allowing religious extremists to bulldoze down Palestinian homes for political purposes, because he knew that would help him with the far-right, the far-right religiously, politically, that he took his eyes off the terrorists who promised to kill Jews, took his eyes completely off of it for political reasons. So, yeah, that speech last night, a little discordant for a lot of people, and I’ll say, including myself, that are fierce defenders of Israel. You can’t be a fierce defender of Israel and listen to what Benjamin Netanyahu said and go, ‘Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.’ Because 80% of people inside of Israel think he is responsible.”
GEIST: “Well, that’s the thing. In this moment of national unity inside of Israel, there is dissent about the man leading the country right now, big dissent. You hear it in the questions he’s asked even in those news briefings. He is a man who has built his reputation as a national security hawk, as the man who can protect Israel from all the aggressors that surround it, every minute of every day. And on October 7th, that all fell to pieces. The fact that people could walk across the border, effectively, and murder a couple thousand civilians, that fell away for him. He is vulnerable to that. And his argument now, Joe, is, ‘There will be time to talk about who is responsible. There will be a time for that. Right now, we have to crush Hamas.’”
SCARBOROUGH: “Well, Jonathan, Willie is exactly right.”
BRZEZINSKI: “I wouldn’t want to put off that conversation.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Why? You’d want the same people that allowed the attacks to happen on October 7th to lead this war? No. Because he put clowns around him. I have friends in Israel that told me for a year that he was taking out the pros and bringing in idiots and clowns.”
BRZEZINSKI: “What does that sound like?”
SCARBOROUGH: “Yeah, what does that sound like? It sounds like Donald Trump in the United States. Again, they didn’t tell me this on October 8th. They were telling me this in June and July. They were telling me it’s a certain kind of show over there. And I had warnings time and time again, people saying time and again, ‘He’s dividing the very people who protect our existence.’ So now he’s going out — Willie is right, you know, he’s built himself up as this hawk through the years. He will be remembered as the man who was responsible for the greatest slaughter of Jews worldwide since the Holocaust. I’m not saying that. Israelis are saying that, the ones who were there, the ones who lost sons, the ones who lost daughters, the ones who lost kids, who lost parents, who lost grandparents. They’re the ones saying it. That’s why he can’t go out and answer questions from Israelis. That’s why the cabinet ministers won’t go out to the people, because they know they’re responsible.”
LEMIRE: “Yeah, his legacy will be that he took his eye off the ball. The number one job for an Israeli prime minister is to keep Israeli citizens safe. His focus was the battle of the courts, his focus was the settlements, his focus was appeasing the far-right members of his coalition, and he lost the — you know, he lost the ability to keep those Israelis safe. He’s facing a lot of questions now. There’s real sense in the Biden White House that his days politically are numbered. They suspect he’ll keep his position through this first wave of the war, but at certain point, polls suggest Israelis want a new leader.”