Jon Stewart is not backing down from critiquing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden for their bullish policies in Gaza — and now in Lebanon — almost a year since the October 7 attacks, which led to the deaths of 40,000 Palestinians.
“The Daily Show” host, who is hot off an Emmy win, opened the show highlighting the “full cognitive dissonance and language calisthenics” used to describe the Middle East over the last “I don’t know, four, five, six, 10,000 years.” This is following Israel’s recent attacks on Lebanon which Stewart, using Netanyahu’s own words, said was the “wanton rocketing” of other nations.
The show then played a clip from CNN of an Axios foreign policy reporter explaining Israel and the U.S.’s policy as: “de-escalation through escalation.”
Stewart yelled, “Or, as that is sometimes called, war! . . . Do you even hear yourself? De-escalation through escalation, where have I heard—” Stewart then pulled out copies of George Orwell’s “1984,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and the comic book collection “Garfield Fat Cat 3-Pack” as the punchline to his point.
“But here’s the worst part. The country that is providing all the bombs to the Middle East seems to have no idea when these bombs would be used,” he added.
Moreover, Stewart highlighted various statements from the U.S. and foreign policy officials who have feigned ignorance saying the U.S. was unaware when Israel would deploy these bombs, claiming, “it was not involved in these incidents.” Although, in August, the Biden administration approved $20 billion in weapons for Israel, CBS News reported. However, the U.S.’s involvement stops short of brokering peace while sending weapons. Stewart noted that talks had failed numerous times over the last year due to hardline policies and a lack of interest from Netanyahu and his right-wing agenda.
“I’ve criticized Netanyahu! What have I done?” Stewart joked.
While various clips from Fox News pundits called out people for criticizing the prime minister, Stewart also pointed out that many Israelis have also grown exasperated with Netanyahu’s policies and refusal to end the war in Gaza.
Calling out the hypocrisy around critiquing Israel, Stewart joked, “What anti-Semites the former prime minister of Israel and defense minister are!”
He continued, “But still people are going to see this segment and go ‘All right, maybe Israel isn’t perfect. But criticizing them feeds the fire. Don’t you worry about anti-Semitism?’ And to that, I say, no. I believe anti-Semitism will be fine. But from what I’ve experienced, it’s very resilient. And it’s not really tied to any event, or war, or activity, or reality. For God’s sake, Kanye thought we ruined his Adidas deal!”
Stewart said, “Anti-Semitism will survive this war like it survived all wars going back to the brave Hebrews at Masada.”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe blaming the Jews from the Black Death to the Spanish Inquisition to the space lasers will all go away if Israel does right. And peace will reign and people will no longer baselessly blame the Jews when things don’t work out exactly the way they want them to.”
The host then played a clip from Donald Trump stating this election’s importance and then following that up with, “In my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss if I’m at 40%”
To this, Stewart yelled, “Son of a b***h!”
“The Daily Show” airs Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central and streams on Paramount+.
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