Jon Stewart Takes on Israel's Attack on Gaza

Posted by Holly, Feministe at 4:36 AM on January 9, 2009.

He’s braver than me, that’s for sure.

The best part, in my opinion (sorry, don’t have time for a full transcript, but hopefully one will surface somewhere):

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: If you're in your apartment and some emotionally disturbed person is banging on your door, screaming, “I'm going to come through this door and kill you!” do you want us to respond with one police officer, which is proportional, or with all the resources at our command?

Stewart: I guess it depends if I forced that guy to live in my hallway … and make him go through checkpoints every time he has to take a shit! But then again, by removing him by force … I guess if you believe that there are no more crazy people in New York … OK!

God, my dumb-ass mayor. What kind of stupid example is that? Yeah, I want a SWAT team to come in and blow away that mentally ill, trapped, underfed person with everything they’ve got. That would be a great scenario for everyone involved -- for me, my apartment, the poor unhinged screamer. "Everything at our disposal," the kitchen sink, as opposed to, say, a social worker who knows the person and a police officer, just in case? Believe me, I've been in that kind of situation. I did not want "all the resources at our command," and I didn’t get them either. Idiotic.

I haven't written much about the Gaza situation because I feel thoroughly overwhelmed and sick about it, and frankly, because I’m freaked out that I don’t know enough to say something intelligent, other than expressing distress and horror. But I will say that I’m pretty sick of the whole "well of course if Mexico/Cuba/Canada were attacking us, we'd do the same thing, can't you understand that?" argument. Gee, of course that makes it all right — that the United States would do the same thing? That it would be wrong to disagree with U.S. military policies if the U.S. military and government were carrying out the same kind of policies, just like many Israeli activists do? Come on.

Cue Jon Stewart being tarred as a "self-hating Jew" in 3 … 2 … 1 …

Because you know, being Jewish = being a Zionist = defending Israel’s policies at all costs without any nuance, right? I’m often disappointed by the occasional Stewart joke because he engages in "splash damage" mockery of a lot of "hilarious" disenfranchised groups for extra yuks along the way: trans people, fat folks, midgets, the mentally ill (as in this case, although my mayor brought it up). But I'm glad he's using his comedytorial pulpit to speak out this time, and that he seems genuinely upset by what's happening. I’m glad for all the Jews out there who are willing to take a stand and say that what's happening is wrong, honestly. I think it's brave.

I saw a lot of bravery and anger and unwillingness to roll over and go away when I was at the Palestinian-led protest marches here in New York on Saturday as a legal observer, and I saw Jews marching alongside there, too. I don't think that point can be repeated enough, especially for all the rabidly pro-Israel and blindly anti-Semitic types out there who like to weigh in on this horror.

(Hat tip to a Friend o’ Feministe.)

Tagged as: war, international, celebrity, anti-semitism, foreign policy, mental health, jon stewart, new york city, stupidity, mid-east