After admitting Israel has a right to defend itself but refusing to say whether Israel’s response was disproportionate, Hillary Clinton told Fusion TV’s Jorge Ramos:
But I and everybody who has seen these terrible pictures on TV hope there can be a cease-fire and try to end the killing and try to prevent the unbelievable heartbreak that we see happening.
The dead and injured Hillary is seeing on TV is exactly what Hamas wants her to see on TV. It’s the very reason they use human shields, to increase the body count so that it puts more pressure on Israel to stop. How could she have been Secretary of State and not understand this?
And lets be clear. Israel’s response is NOT disproportionate. How difficult is that to say directly? But Hillary refuses to say one way or the other.
She also suggests that Hamas hides rockets in civilian areas because Gaza is ‘pretty small and densely populated’.
Watch:
JORGE: Do you think Israel somehow responded in a disproportionate way.
HILLARY: I think Hamas intended to provoke Israel because that’s why they started the rocket fire again. As I say when I negotiated a cease-fire it held until just this month.
And then Hamas, which has its back against the wall decided to once again fire rockets into Israel.
Israel made it clear that wasn’t acceptable. Hamas kept doing it.
Israel said stop the rockets, and then they discovered all of these tunnels.
So obviously Israel has a right to self-defense.
But I and everybody who has seen these terrible pictures on TV hope there can be a cease-fire and try to end the killing and try to prevent the unbelievable heartbreak that we see happening.
JORGE: It was the appropriate response you think from Israel?
HILLARY: The problem is – and I’m not a military planner, but Hamas puts its missiles, its rockets in civilian areas. Part of is that Gaza is pretty small and it’s very densely populated. They put their command and control in those civilian areas.
Israel, I know, has sent warnings and tried to get people to move but in any kind of conflict there are going to be civilian casualties and we need to try to get to a cease-fire as soon as possible.