Ashleigh Banfield. Photo: Twitter.

It did not take long for the recent diatribe by presidential candidate Donald Trump suggesting that Muslims be banned from entering the US, to be turned into the moral equivalence of Jew-hatred.

Trump made his inflammatory remarks the evening of Monday, December 7, 2015.

When CNN host Ashleigh Banfield went on-air on Tuesday morning, December 8, she opined, “If you supplant the word ‘Jews’ for ‘Muslims’ in a lot of the rhetoric that we’ve had this morning, I think people would find it sort of cringe-worthy and reminiscent of a really ugly time in our history.”

Banfield made the comments while she was interviewing former Reagan White House staffer Jeffrey Lord.

When Lord said to her, “There are no Jews that are coming in here to destroy America. They’re coming here to get away from these people,” Banfield doubled down with, “What are you talking about? There have been Jewish terrorist attacks. Should we therefore ask no Jews to please apply for a visa?”

Lord asked, “Are you really saying to me that there’s an international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world? That’s what radical Islam is all about.”

Banfield kept going, and said, “I’m telling you that there have been that many terrorist attacks committed by Jews and no one’s suggesting that all Jews should be wiped out of this country for visiting. It’s the same thing.”

Banfield referenced the 2004 Congressional testimony of John S. Pistole, a former Deputy Director of the FBI, who cited 18 terrorist attacks committed by Jewish-affiliated groups on American soil between 1980 and 1985. When Lord insisted, “No, it’s not the same thing, Ashley. The motive here is to set up a caliphate, to remake the entire world in the image of radical Islam,” the CNN anchor remained unyielding.

To suggest that a handful of attacks in the early 1980s can be compared to the dangers of radical Islam is asinine. It is a willful ignorance of the truth.

But it’s not surprising, since Banfield has a questionable history when it comes to reporting on Israel.

In 2002, when she was on MSNBC, she falsely accused Israel of violating UN Security Council Resolution 242, and then compared Israeli and Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions. She then suggested that the “Jewish Lobby” paid off politicians to support Israel.

On the November 16, 2012, edition of CNN Newsroom, Banfield said, “Rockets [were] fired at Jerusalem. It is not the capital at this point, but it is the disputed center of the universe so to speak when it comes to Israel.” The fact is that Jerusalem is indeed the capital of Israel — whether Ms. Banfield approves or not.

She then engaged Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor by suggesting there was a moral equivalence between Israeli self defense and Hamas’ rocket fire, saying, “It’s difficult to hear enemies of peace because when you talk to Palestinians, they say the Israelis are the enemies of peace. Everyone wants peace. Everyone has children. They want peace on their terms, and there’s a lot of intransience on both sides.”

Prosor replied, “It’s very simple. Missiles are falling.”

He was interrupted by Banfield speaking over him, saying, “It’s not very simple.” Prosor replied, “No, it’s not very simple. But missiles are falling on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Just think if missiles would be falling in the middle of Manhattan, London or Paris.”

Banfield then took on Hamas’ position as if it were objective journalism. She proposed, “And if Manhattan, London and Paris were occupied and didn’t have their own autonomy… their own state, their own recognition…, they would feel as though they had to fight too.”

On yet another occasion, in 2014 with Professor Alan Dershowitz, Banfield provided moral justification for Hamas’ policy, when talking about the murders in the Har Nof synagogue in Jerusalem. She explained, “Soldiers come in all forms… and when you have mandatory conscription and service in Israel, effectively the Palestinians will say, ‘it’s war against everyone, because everyone is a soldier.”

When Dershowitz replied “Well, that’s just racism and bigotry. To say that everyone is a soldier,” Banfield interrupted in protest, saying, “But everybody is.” Dershowitz made his point, “Not everybody is… The law of war is very clear. You can’t kill a two year-old child claiming, ‘he’s going to be a soldier.’”

In an interview about his dialogue with Banfield, Dershowitz said, “For her to raise this outrageous argument in the context of the synagogue shooting, it really required me to control my temper.”

Ms. Banfield is not objective when it comes to the Jewish state.