Russell Brand calls Fox News’ Sean Hannity a 'terrorist' for his Gaza coverage (VIDEO)
Comedian Russell Brand used his web series The Trews to blast Fox News’ Sean Hannity for “using intimidation, bullying” and overall hypocrisy during a segment in which the conservative host berates a pro-Palestinian guest about Israel’s offensive on Gaza.
A recent segment on Hannity's show is prefaced with the host asking why “is America’s largest Muslim so-called civil rights group [the Council on American–Islamic Relations or CAIR] showing sympathy to terrorists? Let’s have a debate.”
Brand notes that Hannity was “already being unreasonable” in how he was framing the “debate,” adding that the Fox host “wants conflict” rather than peace between Israel and Palestinians.
Hannity insists that pro-Palestinian guest Yousef Munayyer, of the Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center, answer to whether Hamas - the militant group in the Gaza Strip responsible for rockets fired into Israel - is a terror group.
Brand says that a pro-Israel Hannity is bent on context-free, aggressive shouting match rather than a discussion of the complex factors that have led up to the latest round of violence, disproportionately felt by Palestinians, according to Brand.
“Another thing Sean does is just use incendiary words. ‘Rockets!’ ‘Kidnapper!’ ‘Murder!’ ‘A little baby duckling kicked in the face!’ These are just things that are bad.”
When Hannity tires of shouting at Munayyer about Hamas, he moves to the talking point used by Israel that Palestinians use children as “human shields.”
“Reports from Gaza say that they’re not using children as human shields,” Brand says. “Those children are dying because there are missiles going off all over the place and Gaza’s only a little tiny area.”
“But even if they were,” Brand adds, “even if everyone was carrying around children literally strapped to wooden boards, using them as shields — they still wouldn’t die if it weren’t for the missiles. The key ingredient in the death of those children is the missile.”
Brand ends his segment of The Trews pointing out that in the process of angrily denouncing Hamas as “terrorists” while ignoring Israel’s mighty, Western-backed military qualifications, Hannity was “using intimidation, bullying, being unreasonable” to shout his guest down.
“One definition of terrorism is using intimidation to achieve your goals,” Brand says. “Who in that situation was behaving like a terrorist?”
Watch the entire clip:
