Jon Stewart on American Policy in Israel: 'Real Friends Don't Let Friends ... Bomb that Much'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | April 9, 2024 |

Good morning. We will talk about Israel again today because that’s what Jon Stewart talked about on The Daily Show last night. I just want to put this out there, however, because whenever the subject of Israel comes up, invariably, the first response to the carnage inflicted in Gaza is to frame it in terms of the Presidential election. It is as though we are supposed to completely put foreign policy aside because it is an election year. It is as though because it is an election year, we are not allowed to call the Biden Administration out on its bullshit. Does it mean we’re going to vote for Trump? No. Does it mean we’re somehow playing both sides? Absolutely not. But for anyone to say that we can’t talk about the death of 32,000 people in Gaza because of abortion laws in the United States is ridiculous. Biden is clearly the better choice, but it doesn’t mean we can’t condemn his non-action and chew bubblegum at the same time. We have to be able to call the President out for the clear hypocrisy between American policy in Ukraine and Israel that Jon Stewart points out below and be able to support his other policies. Nothing changes unless the people whom Biden depends on for political survival demand change, and we can’t stop doing that because it’s an election year. People yell at me all the time on this site and come back the next day; we can do the same for the most powerful man in the country.

I also want to add that someone in the comments last week said that “Jews are colonialist oppressors.” Fuck off. Jews aren’t oppressors. Larry David, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg aren’t oppressing anything. Jon Stewart is not a colonialist oppressor. It’s the Israeli government doing the oppressing in Gaza right now, but even the Israeli government is only able to do what they are doing because they are backed by the United States and most of Europe. Israel needs the support of America to continue its existence — and I believe in its right to exist, as I believe in the right of a Palestinian state to exist. Because of all the cards that we hold, America can help shape policy outside of simply “showing concern.” And it’s Democrats — and American Jews — who are pushing for those policy changes, and we need to push harder. It’s in the best interests of Israel, Gaza, and the United States.

“Real friends take the keys,” Stewart says. “Because real friends don’t let friends … bomb that much.”