{"id":123827,"date":"2014-06-11T15:55:33","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T15:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=123827"},"modified":"2014-06-11T15:56:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T15:56:03","slug":"crossfire-clueless-israeli-occupation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/crossfire-clueless-israeli-occupation\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossfire Clueless on Israeli Occupation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Hart<\/em><\/p>\n

CNN’s\u00a0Crossfire\u00a0is\u00a0ostensibly<\/a>\u00a0a debate between the left and the right. But the show’s debate (6\/9\/14<\/a>) over Hillary Clinton’s new book show how the format can become meaningless and\u00a0the discussions turn senseless.<\/p>\n

The host from the right,\u00a0S.E. Cupp<\/a>, spotted something in the book to attack:<\/p>\n

I’ve read the chapter in her book on Israel, and let me tell you, there is a doozy in there. Let me just read. She writes of her first visit to Israel, “I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians who are denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted.”<\/p>\n

Now, I’m sure I don’t have to remind anyone at this table that Chris Christie had to apologize for using similar language about Palestinian occupation. Is Hillary Clinton going to apologize to Israel for using that same language?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much of the West Bank is currently under Israeli occupation. This was true whenever Clinton made her first visit. So the\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0host is demanding to know whether Clinton will apologize for saying something perfectly accurate.<\/p>\n

Too bad\u00a0Crossfire<\/strong>‘s leftists couldn’t just say so. Tracy Sefl of the Ready for Hillary PAC responded by saying she hadn’t read the book, but that Clinton had “expanded the notion of diplomacy in the State Department to include an incredibly important set of issues which have to do with women and girls.” Cupp interrupted this bizarre non-answer to ask again whether Clinton \u00a0“owe(s) Israel an apology,” which led to this exchange:<\/p>\n

SEFL:<\/strong>\u00a0Hillary Clinton is going to stand by the words in her book. She is not going to apologize for something she need not apologize for.<\/p>\n

CUPP:<\/strong>\u00a0She believes the Palestinian territories are occupied, then?<\/p>\n

SEFL:<\/strong>\u00a0She will be making that point as she, herself, should.<\/p>\n

CUPP:<\/strong>\u00a0So then you think that she believes that the Palestinian territory is occupied? She’s not going to apologize for that, and she asserted that on purpose?<\/p>\n

SEFL:<\/strong>\u00a0I’m sure that when we all actually read the book and listen to her give these interviews, her words will stand for themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CNN<\/strong>‘s host from the left, Paul Begala, chimed in to say, “I am unapologetically pro-Israel, and Hillary is very, very strong on this.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, those\u00a0who have\u00a0questioned<\/a>\u00a0whether the pundits who play the left onCrossfire<\/strong>\u00a0are really on the left may have noticed that\u00a0Begala cheered Clinton’s hawkish stance on Iran (She\u00a0“is the reason we have sanctions on Iran”), said he was “<\/span>wearing my knees out praying” she\u00a0runs for president, and played a clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praising Clinton to illustrate her commitment to Israeli security.<\/p>\n

The guest from the right, meanwhile\u2014Tim Miller\u2014was the one who raised questions about Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, arguing that these will be a problem with the party’s liberal base:<\/p>\n

I just think this is going to be a tough sell for her. I mean, Hillary Clinton is going to have the closest ties to Wall Street out of the candidate in either party. She was getting paid $200,000 per speech by the biggest Wall Street firm. So the idea she’s going to be able to tap into this Elizabeth Warren populist movement is pretty ridiculous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the left critique of Clinton came from the right. The\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0version of the left had this retort:\u00a0“What is this, Russia? We’re not allowed to get rich anymore?”<\/p>\n

Reprinted<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Hart CNN’s\u00a0Crossfire\u00a0is\u00a0ostensibly\u00a0a debate between the left and the right. But the show’s debate (6\/9\/14) over Hillary Clinton’s new book show how the format can become meaningless and\u00a0the discussions turn senseless. The host from the right,\u00a0S.E. Cupp, spotted something in the book to attack: I’ve read the chapter in her book on Israel, and let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,7,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-123827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-media-news","8":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}