Possible Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sided strongly with Israel on popular American comedy and current affairs program The Daily Show. The show's host, Jon Stewart, asked Clinton: “Can we at least agree the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is overwhelming and that the world must do more for the people who are trapped by this conflict?”
Clinton would not go there. “Well, and they're trapped by their leadership,” she retorted. “Unfortunately it's a two-pronged trapping. They have leadership that is committed to resistance and violence and therefore their actions are mostly about how do we get new and better missiles to launch them at Israel, instead of saying 'hey, let's try to figure out how we're going to help make your life better?'
“The Israelis are absolutely right in saying that they can't just sit here and let the rockets rain down,” she insisted. “They have a missile defense system which is working well, but, you know, that can't be certain. And now there are drones apparently that are being launched from Gaza.
The residents of Gaza, she explained, are trapped. “They're trapped, I would argue first and foremost, by a leadership that doesn't really want to make the situation too much better because that gives them a lot of leverage over the poor people in Gaza.”
Stewart asked Clinton if it is not reasonable for people in Gaza to see Hamas as freedom fighters.
She responded with some history. “When Israel withdrew from Gaza... they left a lot of their businesses. There was really a very valuable horticultural business that was set up by the Israelis who had lived in Gaza and the idea was that this would be literally turned over, money was provided, there would be a fund, to train Palestinians in Gaza to do this work and basically the leadership said 'we don't want anything left from Israel,' destroyed it all. That mentality I find hard to deal with.”