Carnage at, yet another u. N. Schoolhousing refugees in gaza. The third time they have bombed the u. N. Run school. The state department was appalled by the disgraceful shelling outside the school. There can be no question of the state identity . No, absolutely, no. There was encouraging news about an american doctor infected with ebola. I cant think of a better place in the world, other than Emory University hospital, to care for this patient. The plane has picked up the second ebola patient to go to georgia. Congress has left the building. Leading the president promising to go solo on the humanitarian crisis at the border. So thats not disagreement between me and the house of republicans. That is a green light between the republicans and the house of republicans. What are you going to do about it . I think congress has to sit down and have a serious look at this constitutional and that includes that i word we dont want to say. I think it would be foolish to discount the possibility. Mitch mcconnell and his Allison Lundergan crimes. If Mitch Mcconnell were a tv show. He would be mad men. He is stuck in 1968 and ending this season its monday, august 4th. Lewis on set. On set Nicole Wallace and
managing editor of news website bobby ghosh and columnist for the New York Times david ignatius. What are you a columnist of . The news keeps getting worse and worse and worse. You have netanyahu saying to us, mind your own business. He tells kerry that. And then the news that happens after that. My god. Shows we cant mind our own business. You have two sides clearly we will talk about, obviously, most in the morning, but two sides and neither side has someone with the courage to stand up say lets figure out how to end this. Sevenhour truce is under way in the gaza strip. Israeli is pulling back on its ground operations while leaving the door open to further strikes against the militants. On sunday an israeli missile strike killed ten people at a
u. N. School, where thousands of civilians were taking cover from the fighting of the attack which was apparently aimed aat a passing motorcycle who left dozens of palestinians injured. It also sparked intense criticism from the international community, including the state department, thats something that doesnt usually happen towards israeli, which said the United States is, quote this is very Strong Language coming out of the United States state department appalled by the disgraceful shelling. The u. N. Went further calling the israeli action, quote, a moral outrage and a criminal act. Israelis continued air campaign fell over last weeks broken ceasefire and after that truce collapsed, Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu reportedly sold Senior America officials, quote, not to ever secondguess me again. Meanwhile, germanys leading newspaper says Israeli Intelligence agencies
eavesdropped on secretary of state john kerry and his phone conversations during last years peace negotiations. Over the weekend, an israeli soldier initially thought to be captured was confirmed killed. One of 64 troops and three civilians to die in the four weeks of war. So, mike, its very difficult very difficult for the United States to just sit back and even for strong supporters of israeli to just say, heres your blank check. Go off and do whatever you want to do. Which is what basically they are asking us to do and the most extreme members of the pro israeli crowd are asking us to do that we can never ask a question and when you have what happened again with the attack, you have the continued images of Young Children being pulled out of rubble dead. Im sorry. We have to ask that question. You not only have to ask that question, but you also have to wonder about the extent of where we are going when you have the Prime Minister of israeli basically telling the United States, secretary of state as well as the president of the United States and congress of the United States, dont ever secondguess me again. Leave us alone. Yeah. I dont think its that simple. Bobby . Its not just us. Other countries are doing the same thing. Just before i came on, the Chinese Foreign minister is in cairo and he has gone even further than any american politician to say israeli must lift the blockade. When china speaks, countries these days take that seriously. Lets find out what going up to the moment by bringing in nbc Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel who is live in gaza. Richard, can you give us than up to the moment update right now . Use good morning to all of you. Right now, there is this partial truce in place. It seems that israeli agreed to this under pressure, after all
of the criticism, particularly the United States, israeli most powerful ally, this is a chance for palestinians, in large parts of the gaza strip, to go fishing, go to the market, check on their homes, a lot of their homes are destroyed. But it doesnt apply to all of the gaza strip in the southern region, particularly around rafa there is still an ongoing battle and israeli troops deep into territory and this truce is only supposed to last for another couple of hours. After that, there is questions about a diplomatic solution. Will there be a way out of this diplomatically . There is an egyptian delegation in cairo working with them and they are waiting to see if israeli will send its own delegation. The palestinian demand, as bobby was just talking about, is to lift the siege of the gaza strip
and that would be something that both israeli and egypt would have to agree to and exchange or wants or guarantees that it wont see more rocket fire, that hamas wont arm, that it wont use supplies coming into the gaza strip to reinstruct those tunnels that israeli spent the last month destroying. Let me ask you a question. I saw yesterday something on my twitter feed al jazeera editorial and just an absolutely blistering attack of israelis neighbors for continuing to stand strongly, sidebyside with israeli. This is, of course, something that we just havent seen since 1948 where you have literally all of hamas neighbors from egypt, obviously, for good reason right now with egypt, but egypt, saudi arabia, United Arab Emirates and go around to jordan. All standing sidebyside with
israeli and all against hamas. What type of impact does that have on how much leeway israeli thinks they have right now . Reporter well, i think that is probably the biggest difference in this war than . The other two wars we have seen here in the last several years. A couple of years ago, hamas was in a very different position. The Muslim Brotherhood and hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, was on the rise across the arab world. It was in power in egypt and things were looking very good for hamas. It had a lot of friends and it had a lot of support. The islamic movements have taken a beating and no longer popular with large in the arab world. Groups like isis and syria have given the islamic movements a very bad name. The military ruler in charge of
egypt is even a bigger brotherhood than perhaps israeli is. I think that is one of the reasons israeli felt so confident that now was the time to go after these tunnels, to launch a long campaign, and were seeing, right now, as you were suggesting, the western allies, United States, europe, even china, not a western ally, but a major power, that are coming out and criticizing israeli even before the arab states are coming out and criticizing. Richard engel, thank you very much. David ignatius, how strange is it that the United States and americas european allies are now the ones being critical of these strikes that appear to be to the, you know, just say the observer on tv looking at one u. N. School after another being bombed, to be indiscriminate, while you actually have israelis arab neighbors standing shouldertoshoulder with them even through the worse
of the attacks. Why . Well, hamas, which has been the dominant power in gaza among the palestinians, is, in fact, very unpopular in the arab world. And that is one reason that israeli felt that it wanted and needed free rein to go after hamas missile placements and other weapons in gaza. The u. S. , when it moved toward a quick ceasefire, secretary of state kerry turned to hamas only two friend in the region, turkey and qatar, to try to negotiate that. That is what infuriated israeli a week ago. And led kerry down a path that was just exposed into a lot of criticism. More recently, he has been doing something i think your viewers should think about. He is trying to figure out a way to help Prime Minister netanyahu find a way out of this conflict by empowering, not hamas, but
the moderate palestinians under president Mahmoud Abbas, by bringing the Palestinian Authority into gaza as the governing authority, which could be a very different situation, would offer the promise, over time, of some demilitarization of hamas and where is the action is now and where the peace conference is about now. Keep your eye on that. Bobby, what i have seen as the greatest strategy over the past several weeks and had some morons attacking me and i can call them that, morons attacking me online saying im not pro israeli, ive been pro israeli since a lot of these blowingers were getting their you know what wiped by their mothers wiped. Just how isolated and on the run hamas was before all of this began where you did have all of the arabian states against them. You also had the Palestinian Authority against them. You had them running to the
palestinian authorities to make a deal of convenience just to stay alive as a Political Force and now this has happened. As david just said, other than turkey and qatar, they have no friends in the region and nobody they can talk to. Also, as you pointed out, nobody else that can help strike a deal. Thats the problem. In the past, when you had conflicts like this, it would rage for a few days and then egypt would go in, not just the Muslim Brotherhood. Even before that when mubarak was running egypt he had leverage over hamas and go in there and knock Heads Together bring peace even if it was temporary. No longer that way. Sicily is very antihamas and all of israeli neighbors are antihamas. Qatar and turkey are sort of speaking for hamas but they are new to this and not their traditional role. They are distant and ideological nowhere close to hamas. Its clear, as we saw last week when the ceasefire broke down, hamas doesnt listen to turkey and to qatar. I have to jump in. We have sat here i think seven minutes speaking as hamas as a nation. They are a terrorist organization. Our government has designated hamas as a terrorist organization. We spent eight minutes talking about what they do and israeli does as though they are two armies sponsored by a nation who should be treated equally. They are not. Hamas is a terrorist organization so the tragic and heart breaking deaths of civilians is on the hands of hamas who embeds their weaponry in schools. Hamas put the weapons in schools. When we sit here and talk about these actions we cant ignore hamas actions and hamas are not a nation first of all, two points. Hamas was actually elected by gaza to run gaza. They are a Political Party but they are a designated terrorist group. I agree with you and you know i know they are a terrorist group and i have said unambiguously they are a terrorist group and said that israeli uses mills to protect people and hamas uses people their missiles. That said, if somebody is holding a gun to the head of a 5yearold which nobody has done. No. Hamas is doing it. Right. Right now. They are using little children as human shields. Do um shoot through the 5yearold to get hamas when there is not even a great chance it will get hamas. Hamas is not going to be destroyed by what is going on who is being destroyed, 5yearold and 6yearold and 7yearold children. Of course. That is always of course, i know congress cant have this happen without let me ask you. Would the United States of america be firing into places where day after day after day after day after day 5 and 6 and
7yearold babies were being pulled out of rubble . Would they . We dont but after 9 11 when we were attacked by a terrorist organization we went into afghanistan and targeted the terrorist group, the taliban. Yes, we did. We know and on this show a lot of attention gets paid to inadvertent and tragic death of civilians. Inadvertent and tragic, but when its happening every day, its not as inadvertent and tragic as it is when the United States has done it. The reason the arab nations are silent, they understand better than i think we do in this country, the tactics of ma hamas. The biggest reason, the arab nations, i would think a shared enemy. Is they are afraid they will end up in cairo. Hamas is aligned with the people who took out kurdish towns in iraq. They dont share the same values but a lot of these arab states dont share our values either so lets be careful about
that. Yes, its clear hamas is a terrorist group. They have been for a long time. But every time there has been this conflict between israeli and hamas, it has only ended one way with peace negotiations. The question now is who is going to make those negotiations happen . John kerry has been trying for a couple of weeks, no success. Qatar and turkey have been trying, no success. Who is going to bring them to the table . Nicole, my only point a month ago hamas was dying on the vine. They were isolated and dying on the vine. Exactly. The israelis have played into their hands and every time a 5yearold girl, 6yearold girl, every time a grandmother is blown up in a public market, every time they blow up a u. N. School when the u. N. Says 17 times this is a u. N. School. I agree with you. Who does that help . Who does that help . That terrorist group youre talking about, the terrorist group we all hate. Thats my only point. Lets go to al hunt. Poor john kerry. He gets kicked around, you know . Even netanyahu now is saying leave us alone. I dont think that is going to happen any time soon, do you . No, i dont. I want to go back to davids point, because i think that is relevant here, which is that if this very, very difficult dicey situation could be improved by the Palestinian Authority taking over gaza, netanyahu has got to deliver something to the Palestinian Authority. In the past, he really hasnt been willing to do that and id love to get davids view on this. Is he willing to give up something . Because i dont think he can just say, why dont you good guys or better guys rather go and run gaza now. He has got to give them something on the west bank and go much further than he is wanting to do before. David, wasnt there an opportunity for him just to pay the salaries of Civil Servants that hamas could no longer pay, that could have averted a lot of this disaster and they fused to
even do that . Joe, the question of how Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority would play more role in running gaza i think is the big issue that is now before Prime Minister netanyahu and kerry is trying to put it there. Netanyahu has to decide after these weeks of war, the images that have been so disturbing to people, how does this thing end in a way that leaves israeli more secure that doesnt just mean youll have to go back and fight another war two years from now . Secretary kerry is saying if you can figure out a structure where the Palestinian Authority replaces hamas as the governing authority in gaza, you will leave israeli and the palestinians safer and more secure over the long run. And i think kerry is going to push netanyahu dont secondguess me and dont tell me what to do, but the truth is the u. S. Can be helpful to israeli now in trying to figure out a way to move from this awful status quo into something new. How much do we give israeli
every year . 2. 7, 2. 5 billion. Its close to 3 billion dollars. What is your point . My point is i mean, its an interesting idea. Get the Palestinian Authority more or fatah more power in gaza. Do we think hamas is going to roll over and let that happen now that they have essentially been i mean, empowered in some ways. Do we think they will simply just let that happen . Traditionally they have taken a very dim view. They have taken a dim view. They have just proved to be the most disastrous leaders. They have done for their own good what the Muslim Brotherhood did in egypt, where they did more damage to their own cause trying to run a country than we could have ever done. Look at the numbers up on the screen. You know what . I voted for support for israeli every year. And i would continue to vote for support for israeli every year. But we pay 3. 1 billion a year in foreign aid to israeli. We pay 504 million for the iron
dome. 121 billion since world war ii. And, of course we are their biggest supporter. I will tell you we need to be, with the antisemitism sweeping across europe right now, which is absolutely revolting, even coming out of germany, of all countries. France. Out of france. It is disgusting. It is revolting. The antisemitism is sickening and we are going to talk about that later on. Im glad the United States of america is there to be israelis staunchest defender but, hey,