Joe Scarborough believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is directly responsible for the defeat of pro-Israel Democrats in Tuesday night’s primary elections in New York.

Three progressives who have been highly critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza all won hotly-contested House primaries in the Big Apple on Tuesday night — with two of them taking down incumbents. Brad Lander defeated Rep. Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th District, while Democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier toppled Rep. Adriano Espaillat.

In the opening segment of Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough laid the results directly at the feet of Netanyahu.

“If you want to blame anybody for what happened last night … I think you have to blame Benjamin Netanyahu,” Scarborough said. “Four years of maximalist aims, four years of ahistoric goals in the Middle East that anybody — anybody — from Dr. [Zbigniew’ Brzezinski to even me could have told anybody over the past 20 years, it’s not going to work.”

He added, “The idea that you’re going to be able to brutalize children and women in Gaza with bombing that looks indiscriminate on TV day in and day out for years, that you’re gonna be able to level half of Lebanon, that you’re be able continue to allow thugs to run wild in the West Bank. And brutalizing Palestinians, brutalizing Christians in Bethlehem, brutalizing Christians across that area, along with Palestinian Muslims — especially Palestinian Muslims — blowing up Catholic churches in Gaza. Of course, I’m saying things that would relate to some of these people who are so shocked that Israel is in such low standing in America right now.”

Scarborough noted that when he was growing up, he “was always instinctively pro-Israeli, and anti-Palestinian” because of terror attacks in the 1970s which shaped his views.

“Well, what’s shaping the views now?” Scarborough said. “Images out of Gaza, images out of the West Bank. Images out of Lebanon, a famine out of Gaza, and an American president who tells Netanyahu, go, unrestrained — until his war in Iran goes horribly wrong. You can blame all of this on Benjamin Netanyahu. And yes, if you go back to the horrors of October 7th, blame the funding for that on Benjamin Netanyahu as well. Because he forced the Qataris to continue funding Hamas weeks before the October 7th attack. So again, everybody’s going to want to blame somebody else for this….[Netanyahu] is the reason why Israel’s standing, not only in New York City, but across America is lower than it has been since 1948. And you’re starting to see that in elections, not only on the far left, but on the far-right.”

Watch above, via MS NOW.

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