BLITZER: “Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush is facing bipartisan criticism, as you probably know right now, after she actually accused Israel in engaging in what she called an ethnic cleansing campaign. How do you respond to your Democratic colleague?”
Jeffries: “Israel is not conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel is not engaged in genocide. Israel was brutally attacked in the most horrific way on October 7th. It has resulted in the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. And Israel is in a position where it is responding and going after Hamas. That is a necessary and urgent project for it to complete. At the same time, we are, of course, going to make sure that we are providing the humanitarian assistance necessary to Palestinian civilians who may be in harm’s way through no fault of their own. That’s also one of the reasons why the package that has been put forward by President Biden should be considered in its totality. This is a dangerous world that we are all living in right now. This is a heavy time in America and throughout the world. And we shouldn’t be playing partisan political games, which is what it appears the extreme MAGA Republicans are prepared to do this week, and that’s unfortunate.”
[Duane Patterson and I debated the meaning of this clip on today’s Hugh Hewitt Show. I argued that Jeffries deserved a little credit for pushing back against the Hamas Caucus, while Duane argued that his lack of specificity rendered this meaningless. Check out the podcast from today’s show to see how that argument finished. — Ed]
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