Credit where it is due.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby destroyed Nadia Bilbassy Charters of the Saudi-funded Alarabiya over her anti-Israel question.
WATCH the video. You can see and hear the annoyance and contained anger in his voice:
Al-Arabiya’s Nadia Bilbassy-Charters: “So why not embrace the dissent voices call for a balance between private and public message and criticize Israel when actually it is in violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention. With due respect, John, some think people you repeat what the Israeli army spokesmen saying. It’s exactly what they’re saying you’re repeating here. So, how can you — why not — the dissenting voices, not just understanding them and we have a channels [sic] b/c we’re a democracy. Why not — what’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with standing here and say Israel do something wrong because you’re the best friend, you have leverage on them, why not criticizing [sic] them?”John Kirby: “Well, your question presupposes that we’ve made some determination that the law of armed conflict has violated and I don’t think — we’re not at that point.”Bilbassy-Charters: “So, that — you’re disagreeing with the U.N.?”Kirby: “I — I would just tell you we’re not going to react in near realtime to every event. Israel has a right and responsibility to defend itself and we’re going to make sure they have the tools and capabilities to do that. Again, we’re one month after this and we ought not forget what happened one month ago. 1,400 people slaughtered in their homes and at a music festival and when Hamas decided to conduct operations, it was with the intent of killing people. You know, I heard this word genocide tossed around about. Hamas actually does have genocidal intentions against the people of Israel. They’d like to see it wiped off the map. They said so on purpose. So, that’s — that’s what’s at stake here and we’re going to keep making sure that Israel has that ability to do that. Now, as for the voices, of course, we respect all different voices and perspectives on this and we know that there’s a lot of high emotion here when it comes to what’s going on. We have never shied away from criticizing our friends and partners when we believe it’s warranted and we’ll continue to do that. We also believe that — that — that — the — the best diplomacy, the best progress and diplomatic pursuits is to do it privately, and outside the public eye and we’ll continue to do that as well. We’ll continue to have the tough conversations with our good friend.”
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