Jon Stewart Captures The Problem Of Talking About Israel And Gaza In A Single Clip
He really is just the best.
The Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip last week, for obvious reasons, triggered strongly emotional responses from people on both sides of the debate (assuming there are two “sides” and that this is a “debate”, both of which are fraught assumptions in the first place). As an example, Jon Stewart’s take on The Daily Show last week came in for particular criticism from Times of Israel editor David Horowitz, who accused Stewart of “misrepresenting” the conflict with a bias in favour of the Palestinians.
More broadly, you probably have a couple of friends on Facebook who’ve been jumping on every post, article or photo of the conflict to push their point of view and denounce anyone with a differing opinion as racist, biased, ignorant, cowardly, or some exciting combination thereof; demanding you pick a “side” as though one of the modern world’s most heartbreaking and complex conflicts can be reduced to the us-vs-them simplicity of a grisly sporting match. The recent Gaza invasion intensified this kind of debased rhetoric, but it’s been going on almost as long as the conflict itself, and makes any form of peace even more unlikely than it is now.
All of which makes this response video from Stewart which aired last night hugely refreshing as well as bitingly funny. If you’ve ever been unwittingly drawn into an argument over Israel/Palestine, or any thorny topic, you’ll recognise yourself smack in the middle of screen.
(Ironically, the person who posted this clip on YouTube did so with the tagline “Jon Stewart Learns What Happens When You Criticize Israel”. Some people are bad at getting the point.)
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Feature image via YouTube/the Comedy Channel.