Media Watch 12 September 2025
Katherine Clark and Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrats in the US House of Representatives, this week dodged questions about Israel’s attack on Qatar.
SIPA USACongresswoman Katherine Clark, who ranks second in the Democratic leadership in the US House of Representatives, dodged questions this week from CNN regarding Israel’s attack on Qatari soil. In a different venue, so, too, did Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic Leader.
Democratic politicians afraid to address Israel’s sweeping belligerence in the region are not going to inspire grassroots Democrats tired of funding Israel’s military as it oversees the occupation of Palestinians subjected to apartheid policies.
Leaders in the Democratic Party are not alone in their timidity. The United Nations Security Council in a press statement on Thursday failed to even name Israel in expressing “condemnation of the recent strikes” in Doha, Qatar.
Clark’s failure to speak forthrightly came after her reversal last month on whether Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
She had initially said to an audience of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobbying group, that it is a genocide. Yet she quickly reversed herself and stayed in the good graces of AIPAC as I noted at the beginning of this month.
At the outset of Clark’s CNN domestic interview on Wednesday morning, anchor Pamela Brown said that “Qatar is a key US ally” and that the Israeli strike on Tuesday was “meant to target Hamas leadership.” Acknowledging that “Hamas says that key leaders were not killed in this strike,” Brown then asked, “Is Israel going too far in its war with Hamas in your view?”
Genocide-denier Clark immediately dodged on the incident that killed five low-ranking members of Hamas and one Qatari security official.
“You know, I think we need several things here. One, we need clear information from the Trump administration on when was the US notified. Did we notify our ally, Qatar?”
But that wasn’t the question. Brown’s question was intended to pin down the Democrat on whether Israel had gone too far with the attack being in Qatar.
Israel, it should be remembered, has attacked not just Qatar this week, but the Gaza flotilla while in port in Tunisia as even CNN International has reported. And, of course, over the past two years, Israel has attacked Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran and Iraq.
It’s an out-of-control regional hegemon. Even so, there is scant evidence that the US intends to rein Israel in, though President Donald Trump did claim such an attack on Qatar would not happen again.
The president’s position, however, seemed to matter not a bit to Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Later on Wednesday morning, Danon told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “But if we didn’t get all of them this time, we’ll get them next time. There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. Not in the tunnels in Gaza. Not in Beirut. And not even in the luxury hotels in Doha.”
Blitzer didn’t see fit to ask Danon anything about the Qatari security official killed in the Israeli attack or move the conversation to the Palestinian casualties from that day or week in Gaza.
This is unsurprising. Palestinian deaths frequently aren’t raised at all by CNN domestic.
Ignoring Israeli war crimes
In her interview, Congresswoman Clark continued by blaming the Trump administration for failing to provide intelligence to Congress about the Israeli strike.
Pivoting, she added, “Obviously, Hamas is a terrorist organization that the world condemns.”
One-sided language of this sort from Democratic politicians and New York Times journalists is now completely expected. Nearly two years into the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Clark didn’t mention that genocide or even reference Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It’s an abdication of responsibility, but notwithstanding the Democratic leadership’s generation change of 2022 this shortcoming doesn’t surprise at all.
These are people who lost the White House, Senate and House in 2024 in significant part because core Democratic constituencies refused to vote for genocide supporters. Nevertheless, these Democrats appear to have learned very little from the loss – or are prepared to lose on the hill of the Gaza genocide yet again.
From there, Clark cited the “large [US] military base in Qatar” and American “sailors throughout the world that depend on us abiding by international law for their safety.”
Undeterred, CNN’s Pamela Brown asked: “So, do you believe Israel went too far in its strike in Qatar?”
Clark again dodged. “You know, I think we have to see what happens,” she said.
“Obviously, they feel that Hamas is an entity that they want to eradicate and take out of power. But this is a very different sort of incursion. When we are seeing as people are gathering to negotiate a ceasefire that we desperately need, to have them targeted is something that we have to learn more information about.”
Falling back on the need for more information is an astonishingly weak take on an act violating international law and Qatari sovereignty.
Notwithstanding Trump’s own record of prevarication, he expressed more alarm about the attack than this top Democrat when he asserted on Truth Social: “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”
Wrapping up her remarks, Clark again focused on Hamas – a fallback position for a flummoxed politician.
“We know that we have to remove Hamas from power.”
She then placed her focus on the grim humanitarian situation in Gaza, though that again avoided the question about whether Israel went too far in its attack in Qatar. And it seemed as though she was recalling a talking point rather than speaking from the heart about the ghastly conditions Palestinians in Gaza face.
“We also have to be very aware of the humanitarian crisis that is going on and how we get that aid to people. We need to end this war. We need to make sure that Hamas is out of power. We need to get the hostages home. And we need to surge humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people. All of those things are mutual goals that we have. We have heard with this administration. So, let’s get the real information and see how we can be most effective in ending this war in Gaza.”
These are what she would consider her “balanced” talking points. Yet there was no talk of getting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out as a war criminal or of Palestinians being protected and/or released from abusive conditions, including torture, in Israeli prisons.
There’s no talk of freedom and equal rights for Palestinians, just the bare minimum to keep Palestinians alive. The fight for justice is not one that Democratic leaders are seized with in contrast to many constituents. These leaders largely want the issue to go away and certainly don’t see it as akin to the fight against apartheid in South Africa as key voting groups do.
“Ending this war in Gaza,” as Clark puts it, is important, but there is no talk from her of ending US military aid to the apartheid state. In fact, with CNN there was no talk at all from the congresswoman of Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide.
The same failures of the Democrats’ previous leadership can be seen quite clearly in Clark who, crucially, remains in the good graces of AIPAC nearly two years into a genocide she can’t bring herself to recognize – and continue recognizing despite political pressure.
There can be no trust for a Democratic leader unwilling to stand firm in acknowledging and standing up to genocide in Gaza.
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