A The Daily Show clip from the Jon Stewart days about Israel has recently resurfaced. In the video, which you can watch above (via Mediaite), Stewart attempts to have a calm conversation about Israel and Hamas, but every time he tries to bring up the conflict, he’s interrupted by then-correspondents Jordan Klepper, Jessica Williams, Michael Che, and Jason Jones.
Once the shouting stops (including Klepper calling the host a “self-hating Jew”), Stewart resumes, “That was, that was weird. Anyway, what I was, what I was saying was last Thursday saw the start of a new ground offensive launched by Israel…” Let the overlapping screaming resume. Stewart tries one more time. “Just merely mentioning Israel, or questioning in any way the effectiveness or humanity of Israel’s policies, is not the same thing as being pro-Hamas,” he says. Stewart is then accused of being “a Zionist pig.”
Eventually, he gives up.
The segment was relevant in 2014, and it’s still timely now.
While the nine-year old sketch was clearly meant to parody the discourse about Israeli-Palestinian conflicts from the last decade, it holds a new relevance in light of Israel’s war against Hamas and the atrocities they’ve committed. The war has also caused a firestorm of political commentary as the public grapples with Hamas’ murders and kidnappings, plus the recurring historical quagmire between Israel, Palestine, and the Gaza Strip.
“If you’d like to see how absolutely nothing has changed in the conversation around Israel & Palestine despite decades of violence, here’s Jon Stewart doing a bit that could literally air today without a single change,” @Cooperstreaming wrote on X (where so much misinformation spreads, leading to more shouting at strangers), while @erinoverbey added, “This old @TheDailyShow sketch by Jon Stewart about the difficulties of critiquing gov’t policies when it comes to atrocities & conflict btw Israel-Palestine is once again, sadly, very timely.”
(Via Mediaite)
