my first conversation with would be a part of my banned book club, and when i should talk about literature and writing and the pressures that it is under in america. let s do that another time, but thank you for being with us this morning. i appreciate it. tony kushner is a tony award winner in a pulitzer prize-winning activist. thank you so much for watching, alex witt reports begins right now. a very good day of all to you from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. welcome everyone to alex witt reports. it is noon here on the east coast. six pm in gaza, and we begin with breaking news on the israel hamas war. here s what is new at this hour. there you hear it. israel s grinding retaliation in gaza bringing new claims of attacks on schools, refugee camps, and ambulances. and new calls for humanitarian pauses. israel s military temporarily shut down a main highway to allow evacuations in gaza, but israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says a big no to secretary o
than a second-term president obama, but that is not necessarily a universal feeling here in israel. jamie, there has been a lot of pundits and a also a lot of political figures here in israel who criticized the prime minister for trying to politicize israel and israel s support within the u.s. elections. jamie. jamie: that is an interesting thing as well. what about iran? are they playing into this at this point? reporter: well, certainly the prime minister here has been very success phil, especially using his u.n. speech, to put iran and sanctions center stage. the question for the israelis though, which president is going to take a tougher line with iran? obviously the prime minister here feels as though a president romney would take a much tougher line in the debate. vice president biden spent a lot of time trying to assure everyone that the under an obama administration, iran would not be allowed to get a bomb but privately a number of israelis really question the resolve of the
statistics. that is not how it is going. it he is going down. bill: ryan responding that the economy is barely limping along in the country and growing only at 1.3% gdp. jamie. jamie: they talked a lot about that. congressman ryan taking on the obama administration s foreign policy. he criticized white house and how it is handling iran s nuclear program and america s relationship with israel. let s look at it from the view of the ayatollahs. what do they see? they see this administration trying to water down sanctions in congress for over two years. they re moving faster toward a nuclear weapon. they re spinning centrifuges faster. they see us saying when we come into the administration, when they re sworn in, we need more space for their ally israel. they zoo president obama in new york city, the same day bebe netanyahu is instead of meeting with him, goes on a daily talk show. jamie: leland vittert live in jerusalem. we re so curious, leland, good morning to hear
reaction there to israelis to the debate and election overall. reporter: good morning, jamie. this is really the first time in recent history that the united states support of israel has become an issue in the u.s. presidential election. the prime minister s office this morning flatly refused to comment on or off the record specifically about the debate but last month they made no qualms about their annoyance with the president of the united states for denying that meeting request with the prime minister of israel at the united nations. and during the debate, vice president biden had to spend a lot of time defending the administration s record with israel. they re bebe has been my friend for 39 years. the president met with bebe a dozen times. he spoken to bebe net yaw hue has much as he spleen to anybody. the prime minister has made no public stance who he would prefer to see as president but privately made it very clear that he would view a president romney as a much better fri
regimes, iran has found ways too mit gays the consequences of the sanctions and evade the sanctions and that s what they are doing with the latest round of sanctions. they ve got massive foreign currency reserves to buy them time to find ways around the sanctions, and i think they are busy doing just that. as you say they have russia, china turkey, venezuela and others that are helping them evade the sanctions and that is a significant fact. jamie: let me squeeze one more in, your thoughts, quickly if i could, ambassador, joe biden referred to bb, bb, bb, my friend, we go back. what do you think about the reaction to not having that meeting. did that impact our pwaeult t our ability to support one of our political allies. it was a bad mistake by president obama and it sent a signal to others as to just how isolated israel is from the obama administration and what that would mean for israel s security if there were a second obama term.