In a nine minute monologue, Chris Cuomo reacts to a screening of the raw footage of the October 7th massacre, relating it to the September 11 terror attack in New York, saying that it was "absolutely genocide.”
Chris Cuomo begins his monologue stating that although he had already seen footage from October 7, much of the footage was new to him. It immediately reignited a past trauma of exactly what he had felt when he learned that 9/11 had happened.
He says, “Terrorists targeted the Twin Towers and Washington, DC to take out the great symbols that represent America,” – that there was a methodology behind the madness.
He equates this methodology to that of Hamas, saying that Hamas targeted children, women, innocence, and more, tied them up and burned them alive, just like the Holocaust, to bring up the ultimate fear of what the world could do to the Jewish people again.
The message Hamas wanted to send to Israel is that the Jewish people are less than human and can be treated that way. He says that, “I had seen that bodies had been burned, but I did not understand or appreciate how intentional the effort was, they did it methodologically.”
Cuomo proceeds to discuss the carnage he saw in the videos of the terrorists gleefully shooting innocent people, who were running and screaming for their lives. Cuomo says this was “absolutely genocide” and that by taking such actions, Hamas showed that they absolutely wanted war.
Cuomo then candidly explains that Israel’s response is not for revenge, but rather is “fueled by the deepest fears of genocide,” because Hamas has already stated that they would do it again.
Cuomo finally appeals to those protesting against Israel in the US, saying that it's very easy to ask for the violence to stop, but that it's much harder to navigate the questions, “how?” or “why?”
Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, reacted positively to Cuomo’s monologue. He tweeted, “This is an astonishing monologue, straight from Chris Cuomo’s heart after he watched the Hamas atrocity videos and suddenly everything made sense. Please make time to watch this.”
Waning sympathy for Israelis in the United States
This monologue comes at a time when sympathy towards Israel in the United States is waning, and there are massive pro-Palestinian protests across the country.
Many US news media talk show hosts have spoken out, primarily condemning Israel’s response towards Gaza recently. As early as October 31, Joy Reid on MSNBC said, “Given that these bombings are being done using our tax dollars, perhaps we should ask some questions.”
In the same segment, she highlighted violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and bombings by the IDF on Gaza, arguing that a speech made by Netanyahu sounded like a call for genocide, and accused Israel of committing war crimes.
John Oliver, a late night comedian, host of the show, Last Week Tonight by John Oliver, in an episode in early November accused Israel of war crimes and collective punishment, saying, "even if all Palestinians in Gaza did support Hamas – which they do not – the relentless bombings of civilians there would still be abhorrent,” Oliver argued. “Collective punishment is a war crime."