Anti-Israel Anchors Apparently Too Controversial Even For MSNBC

While CNN occasionally offers a nod to balanced news reporting, MSNBC long ago staked its claim as a fundamentally left-leaning cable news channel.

Nevertheless, there is apparently a limit to the anti-Israel rhetoric the network bosses will allow on the air in the aftermath of a devastating Hamas terror attack earlier this month.

Along with some Democratic lawmakers and protesters across the country, a handful of MSNBC anchors have attempted to portray Israel as the villain even when covering a story about the unprovoked act of terrorism that left more than 1,200 Israeli men, women and children dead and countless others raped, tortured and held hostage. 

Although three of these hosts — all Muslims who previously worked for Al-Jazeera — were permitted to go on the air to spew their tacit justification for the Hamas attacks, each has allegedly since been removed from their anchor positions. The network has been conspicuously quiet about the move while allowing Ali Velshi, Ayman Mohyeldin and Medhi Hasan to continue providing on-air analysis regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

While many of those who condemn the terrorist attack might see MSNBC’s move as a step in the right direction, reporter Maxwell Tani covered the news in a Semafor article that offered a sympathetic look at the trio of anchors.

Citing “America’s wave of sympathy” for victims of the terrorist attack as the impetus for removing Velshi, Mohyeldin and Hasan, Tani wrote that some MSNBC staffers were upset by the network’s move and claimed the three Muslim broadcasters “have some of the deepest knowledge of the conflict.”

For its part, MSNBC denied the anchors had been suspended — and far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) celebrated their return earlier this week.

The Semafor piece went on to accuse right-wing critics of making too much of the anchors’ on-air commentary, but a cursory review of their remarks reveals a penchant for false equivalence if not a justification for violence against Israel.

“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,” Mohyeldin said of the terrorist organization’s brutal tactics.