By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
Journalists Sam Husseini and Max Blumenthal derailed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press conference on Thursday by confronting him on his support for the Gaza genocide.
Husseini was physically dragged out of the room by a group of police while asking Blinken what he knows about Israel’s use of the Hannibal Directive:
Less than two minutes into Blinken’s remarks, as he was thanking the reporters in the attendance for “asking tough questions,” Max Blumenthal, the editor in chief of The Grayzone—an independent news [outlet]—addressed Blinken, saying loudly in reference to the cease-fire deal:”300 reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of your bombs. Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?” On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying that “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring.”
“Why did you sacrifice the rules-based order on the mantle of your commitment to Zionism,” Blumenthal continued, before being led to the door. “How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?” he yelled.
Blumenthal also called out State Department Spokesman Matt Miller, who is briefly visible in a video filmed by the journalist, who charged that Miller “smirked through a genocide.”
Not long after, Husseini also interrupted Blinken.
“I am asking questions after being told by Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions,” said Husseini, who also referenced the findings of Amnesty International, which concluded in December that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. “You pontificate about a free press… Criminal! Why aren’t you in the Hague.” The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.
Blinken can be heard saying “respect the process” in response to Husseini’s outburst.
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the non-interventionist “action tank” the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, remarked that “physically dragging out a reporter from the State Department briefing room while preaching press freedom to the rest of the world is the perfect example of the Biden administration’s love affair with double standards and duplicity…”
Husseini wrote in a statement on X:
I was seriously manhandled but I’m back home… thanks for all support folks.
My intention was to ask tough questions at every opportunity during the news conference which State personnel obviously cut short:
* Was the point of the May 31 announcement to block implementation of the May 24 ICJ order?
* Why do you refuse to recognize the Geneva conventions as applying to Gaza?
* Everyone from Amnesty International to the ICC accuses Israel of extermination and genocide. Why are you not in the Hague?
* Why was your step father Pisar connected to both Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein?
* Miller here pretends not to know about the Hannibal directive – do you know about the Hannibal directive?
* Why do you not even acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons?
I have written about each of these subjects and will continue to do so via Husseini.org.
Blinken had another press conference derailed a day earlier by a protester shouting at him, “You will forever be known as Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide!”
ProPublica reported last year that in order to keep weapons flowing to the Jewish state in violation of US law, Blinken buried two government assessments which found that Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Blinken made his bias clear from day one when he visited Israel in the wake of October 7th and cited the Holocaust and his own Jewishness to push for war with Gaza.
Blinken pushed the “Hamas mass rape” hoax to provide Israel with cover to commit genocide and every “diplomatic trip” he took to Israel ended with the Jewish state committing another massacre.
Blinken spent 15-months running down the clock on Israel’s behalf as they bombed Gaza to the Stone Age with US-supplied weaponry and only now that the Strip has been reduced to a pile of rubble are they ready to give us “peace.”