NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Takes Heat for Inaccurate Knesset Tweet

After NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell posted an inaccurate and inflammatory comment on Twitter about the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, she was quickly corrected by Israeli journalists.

In her Monday morning tweet, Mitchell asserted that “the 13 Israel-Arab members” of parliament were removed from the Knesset floor after a disruption, and suggested this should be seen through the lense of American racism:

The 13 Israeli-Arab members of Israel's Parliament held up signs saying "Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine" and were forcibly removed by security as Pence started to speak. Can you imagine Capitol Police dragging members of the congressional black caucus off the House floor?

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) January 22, 2018

Lahav Harkov, Knesset reporter for the Jerusalem Post, responded:

Hi, I’m an expert on the Knesset and I was in the room during this incident. You have several points wrong here. I’d be happy to explain them to you.

— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) January 22, 2018

Harkov elaborated,

Wrong on several points. 1, they are not “THE 13 Israeli-Arab members” – there are others. 2, it is always against the Knesset rules to hold up signs or use props and there are examples spanning decades of ppl being removed bc of it. 3, ushers, not security guards led them out https://t.co/JgIGkUFpda

— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) January 22, 2018

Indeed, a page on the Knesset website lists 18 current Arab MKs: Talab Abu Arar, Saeed Alkharumi, Hamad Amar, Youssef Atauna, Joumah Azbarga, Zouheir Bahloul, Esawi Frej, Masud Ganaim, Abd Al Hakeem Haj Yahya, Akram Hasoon, Yousef Jabareen, Ayoob Kara, Ayman Odeh, Saleh Saad, Ahmad Tibi, Aida Touma-Sliman, Jamal Zahalka, and Hanin Zoabi.

Seth Franzman, a Jerusalem Post editor, offered another challenge to Mitchell’s numbers:

Where did you get the number 13? The 13 members of the Joint List are not all Arab. Dov Khenin is Jewish. Isn’t he still in the Knesset and a member of the Joint List? #think

— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) January 22, 2018

Responding to the reference to black members of congress, political analyst Omri Ceren noted that this isn’t quite as unimaginable as Mitchell wanted her readers to think:

Oh for crying out loud Andrea. A member of the congressional black caucus was removed from the House floor just a few years ago just for a dress code violation, let alone for disrupting a session, which is what these clowns were doing.

So yeah I think I can imagine it happening. https://t.co/QISJv1XHYM

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) January 22, 2018

As Harkov suggested, it is certainly not unimaginable for people to be removed from the Knesset floor when violating the chamber’s rules. Jewish Knesset member Moshe Gafni, for example, was escorted off the floor in response to his loud protest.

Ze’ev Elkin was not merely a member of Knesset, but also a government minister, when he was forced from the floor — at the behest of Ahmad Tibi, an Arab MK and a deputy speaker of the Knesset.

In the U.S., Janet Nguyen, the country’s first Vietnamese-American woman state legislator, was removed from the floor of the California state senate just last year.

According to the policies and guidelines of NBC News, Twitter posts “should meet the journalistic standards of NBC News.” CAMERA has contacted NBC editors. We will update this space if Mitchell corrects her tweet.