On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough accused Israel of carrying out “random” strikes on civilians in Lebanon—while insisting, implausibly, that his framing was not a “leading question.” “The next question I ask is going to sound like a leading question. It is not a leading question,” Scarborough claimed, before proceeding to deliver exactly that. “We see these strikes against residential areas from Israel, from Netanyahu’s forces into Lebanon,” he said, before asking his guest, Lebanese journalist Kim Ghattas of the Financial Times, “what does Benjamin Netanyahu think he’s doing… by having these random strikes?” Scarborough didn’t stop there. He invoked Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, suggesting a moral equivalence: “When Vladimir Putin does that… we all rightly call it a war crime.” Scarborough’s framing ignored a key distinction. Russia has repeatedly and deliberately targeted civilians, including strikes on homes and other purely civilian targets in Ukraine. Israel maintains it is striking terrorist targets operating from within civilian populations—an unfortunate reality in conflicts involving groups like Hezbollah. Even Ghattas—a Lebanese journalist who wrote a gushy book about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State —was reluctant to embrace Scarborough’s premise. “I want to be very careful with how I answer this question, because some of these strikes are not random,” she said, noting that in many cases Israel was targeting Hezbollah operatives or Iranian Revolutionary Guard figures embedded within civilian areas. WATCH: Scarborough Accuses Israel of ‘Random Strikes’ on Lebanese Civilians pic.twitter.com/PKfqitoiEd — Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) April 15, 2026 Scarborough also personalized the strikes as those of “Netanyahu’s forces,” a familiar media framing, and attempted to draw an emotional response from Ghattas by referencing her “friends and relatives” possibly affected by the strikes. The result was a question that was not only leading—but built on a premise that even his own guest declined to accept. If Scarborough wants to make analogies about countries being the target of random strikes, he could mention the estimated 19,000 unguided rockets launched by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad at Israel since the October 7 massacre in southern Israel. Here's the transcript. MS NOW Morning Joe 4/15/26 6:11 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: Kim, the next question I ask is going to sound like a leading question. It is not a leading question. I'm just curious. We see these strikes against apartments. We see these strikes against residential areas from Israel, from Netanyahu's forces into Lebanon. And we hear that they're degrading Hezbollah.  Of course, when Vladimir Putin does that in Ukraine, we all rightly call it a war crime.  I'm curious, when you're talking about your relatives, and your friends, and friends of friends who have lost their parents, the innocent civilians who are being killed here, I need to better understand what does Benjamin Netanyahu think he's doing in degrading Hezbollah by having these random strikes?  What is, what's Israel's logic? How does bombing apartments in the middle of Lebanon, how does that degrade Hezbollah?  KIM GHATTAS: I want to be very careful with how I answer this question, because some of these strikes are not random.  And certainly Israel insists that they are not random, that they were targeting very specific Hezbollah members or commanders.  And in many cases, that is indeed what happened, that in some of these civilian neighborhoods, members of Hezbollah, relatives of high-ranking commanders. In one case, we had IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran, checked into a hotel.  That is why the anger in Lebanon is growing, because members of Hezbollah are operating across many parts of the country where they don't usually operate.  That does not justify targeting areas that are civilian. That does lead you into terrain of illegality. And the civilian toll is very real.  So Israel can justify that as what they call collateral damage. But those are lives that are being taken and that should not have people who should not have died.  And so it's a very difficult balance. As I said, Lebanon really feels stuck between Israel's military advantage and capacity, and Iran and Hezbollah's disregard for the Lebanese civilian toll.