Six months and over 30,000 deaths into Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Jon Stewart used “The Daily Show” desk to do a “wellness check” — and wasn’t too pleased with the results.
“America knows this is wrong,” he admonished, even comparing the ongoing military effort in the Middle East to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
Stewart devoted the desk segment to comparing the U.S.’s reaction to the war in Gaza to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Specifically, the Comedy Central host and executive producer criticized Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement that Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu need to be more “deliberate” and “mindful” of their actions.
“To be mindful? What is this, f–king hot yoga?” Stewart mocked. “The f–k are we doing here? The subtext of all this is America knows this is wrong. But it apparently doesn’t have the courage to say it in a straightforward manner. America and Israel both know that you cannot bomb your way into safety.”
The late night host then went on to explain that America learned that lesson through its wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, adding that Israel learned it in southern Lebanon.
“They laid siege there, occupied the southern area for 20 years. All it did was birth and strengthen Hezbollah,” Stewart said. “They’re about to do it all over again, and we are letting them. Real friends take the f–king keys because friends don’t let friends bomb that much.”
Before landing on that final joke, Stewart systematically broke down the ways the U.S. has treated the war in Gaza differently than the war in Ukraine. He pointed to Blinken calling Russia’s weaponizing of the Ukraine’s food “unconscionable” before pointing to America’s relative silence over the “literal famine in Gaza caused by the war.” Stewart also highlighted the U.S. condemning Russia’s repression of free press in comparison to the violence against the press in Gaza.
“More journalists have been killed in Gaza in the last six months than anywhere else in the world, and a new Israeli law says they can ban media outlets that they consider a threat,” Stewart said.
Finally, Stewart turned to the “bedrock” of international law: “no taking land by force.” When it came to Russia trying to take Ukraine, America’s was vocal about condemning the practice. That wasn’t the case when Israel declared roughly 1,976 acres in the Jordan Valley to be state land in March.
“You can’t say it has anything to do with defending yourself against Hamas,” Stewart said before reflecting on “the verbal gymnastics that the American government must undertake so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of a country that we provide most of the weapons for.”
“Every time America tells the world that there’s something that we won’t allow, Israel seems to say, ‘Challenge accepted,’” Stewart said. “Are they willingly trying to provoke us? Or maybe they’re just reading our principles from right to left.”
Watch the full “Daily Show” segment in the video above.
