Sunny Hostin regrets people have to take 'sides' on Israel-Hamas conflict
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin compared the plights of the hostages taken by Hamas with Palestinian prisoners taken by Israel.
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin said Monday it was "unfortunate" people have "taken such sides" in the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict and took an implicit shot at the show for only showing footage of Jewish family reunifications.
The ABC talk show opened Monday with footage of hostages who had been freed by Hamas, several of them young children, as well as a clip of President Biden discussing four-year-old Abigail's ordeal, who was taken prisoner after her parents were murdered by the terrorist group. She and dozens of other hostages were freed after Israel released Palestinian prisoners accused of various criminal offenses during a temporary cease-fire.
Hostin appeared irked with the show for only showing the tearful reunions of Jewish families.
"I think that it’s unfortunate that people have taken such sides here because this is something that has been going on for decades, right?" she said. "And we did show the reunification of Jewish families, and I think that was really important, especially little Abigail. I’m a mother. I can’t imagine having your child taken from you and held hostage by a terrorist organization, but we – also, there were, you know, 76 Palestinians, including women and children, that were being held in Israel with no understanding of why they were being held, no administrative hearings. And so those reunifications are something that we should also be looking at and talking about."
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Sunny Hostin speaks on "The View" on November 27, 2023.
She went on to say she watches Al Jazeera, BBC and other news outlets as part of getting her media from "everywhere," while referencing the recent killings of Palestinian-Americans stateside and hoping for a two-state solution to the longstanding conflict.
"There is media in Gaza because I've seen these videos… I think what’s really important is what happens after this pause because a cease-fire apparently is a bad word now," she said. "So what happens after this humanitarian pause? Who is in charge? Who isn’t in charge? Are we going to continue seeing this devastation in Gaza? Are we going to continue seeing these three Palestinian kids going — college kids, one who knows my son’s friend, OK? When is that going to stop? When are we going to really meet at the table and understand that all lives in this situation are being affected, and we must have a two-state solution? We must have that."
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said Hostin rightfully called Hamas a terrorist organization, but she chided Hostin's remarks about not wanting to take sides.
"I do think that you can take sides," she said. "You can support the innocent Palestinian people and the innocent Israelis caught in the crossfire, but you can take a fundamental, as we all have at this table, stance against Hamas, a terrorist group that made this happen on October 7."
President Joe Biden discussed the plight of hostages held by Hamas. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Hostin, one of the show's several left-wing hosts, has been consistently critical of Israel and its tactics since the conflict began, at one point accusing it of war crimes.
Griffin noted "we were at a cease-fire" before October 7, when Hamas terrorists stormed into southern Israel and killed 1,200 people and took hundreds of hostages. Israel has since responded with a bombardment of Gaza that has forced Hamas to negotiate the temporary cease-fire, for which it has received back Palestinian prisoners accused by Israel of various crimes.
The Times of Israel reported the released convicts, "all women or young men, had all been charged with or convicted of terror-related crimes, including attempted murder."
"The View" didn't reply to a request for comment.