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Television host Dr. Phil McGraw, who has emerged as a staunch supporter of Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks, devoted an episode of his new show, “Dr. Phil Primetime,” to the Hamas-Israel War, antisemitism and college protests.
In the episode, posted to YouTube on Wednesday, Dr. Phil takes to task two Muslim guests for their inability to condemn the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
The episode began with an in-depth interview of featured guest Mosab Yousef, sometimes referred to as the Green Prince, a son of a co-founder of Hamas. Yousef defected to Israel in the 1990s and worked as an undercover agent for the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet). He has been one of the most outspoken defenders of Israel’s position during the current conflict.
Salma and Zaynab, seniors from the University of Michigan, were introduced to offer an opposing perspective.
“Let’s start with what happened on October 7. Do you endorse that?” Dr. Phil asked first of Zaynab.
“I reject the premise of that question, because I don’t believe that the person asking me that question has the moral authority to ask it until they first and foremost condemned the violent formation of Israel and the ensuing Palestinian deaths,” Zaynab responded.
“And in fact, I find it unfair that advocates for Palestine are first forced to preemptively condemn acts of violence before their platform is considered legitimate. It plays into Islamophobic tropes,” she added.
Dr. Phil then asked Salma if she condemned what happened on Oct. 7.
“Of course, we do not justify murdering any innocent civilians,” Salma said.
“But again, the framework of the question makes it seem as if the situation is the result only because of October 7, when there have been several massacres for decades leading up to this.
“So when we have been the recipient of that violence, and we are first asked to condemn violence, I find that there’s a sense of hypocrisy in those questions when our suffering is not being recognized,” she continued.
“There are some things that are just fundamental human decency,” said Dr. Phil. “And when I asked you if what happened on October 7 is something you condemn, and you say, ‘Well, you have to look at that by looking at hundreds of years of conflict’—No, you don’t. No, you don’t. That’s either right or it’s wrong, and it was wrong. And I don’t need 100 years of conflict to know it was wrong.
“When somebody comes over a fence and goes into someone’s house and burns their infant in its crib, I don’t give a damn why they did it. It’s wrong,” Dr. Phil said.
Yousef told Zaynab, “You are helping Hamas to prove to the world that Palestine depends on the destruction of the State of Israel. And this is not acceptable, and we are not going to agree to it.”
Yousef said he no longer makes a distinction between the terrorist group Hamas and Palestinians in general.
“To you, Hamas and Palestinians are the same?” Zaynab asked.
“After October 7, yes, there is no difference. The vast majority of the Palestinian people support Hamas. This is a fact. This is proven by statistics, and your silence now,” Yousef said.
“You cannot even condemn Hamas and say that what they did on October 7 was an act of a savage group. You don’t have that power. On what authority do you speak? You only speak on the authority of Hamas propaganda,” he added.
“If you were a decent human being you can say that the thousands [sic] who were killed on October 7 was a crime against humanity. It was a genocide,” Yousef said.
On Dec. 10, Dr. Phil called for the resignation of the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after they refused to say during congressional hearings five days earlier that genocidal calls against Jews violated school policies regarding bullying and harassment.
“As an American, I grow increasingly appalled at the antisemitism permeating so much of our country, especially by so many students at our elite universities, which have become left-liberal woke hotbeds fostering intellectual rot rather than critical thinking, and tolerated or endorsed by their administrations,” Dr. Phil said in a video posted online.
“Dr. Phil Primetime” premiered on Feb. 26 through Merit Street Media, a multiplatform media company based in Dallas-Fort Worth and launched by Dr. Phil.
This JNS.org report was republished with permission from Jewish News Syndicate.