Jon Stewart's Perfect Response to Criticism He is 'Self-Hating' for Israel Critiques

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Jon Stewart The Daily Show

Credit: Creative Commons/U.S. Navy


“Go f-ck yourself,” Jon Stewart said in a moment of perceptible anger.
This wasn’t the usual, lighthearted barb during a satirical segment, nor a playful expression of ire diluted by audience laughter. It was sincere and seemingly raw, uttered during an interview with Canada.com’s Jon Dekel and directed toward those Jews who have called him anti-Semitic, self-hating, or a kapo for critiquing Israel on The Daily Show.
The verbal barb didn’t come out of left field during Dekel’s interview, conducted in advance of the release of Stewart’s movie, Rosewater. It came near the end of a series of focused questions posed to Stewart on the topic of attacks he’s withstood from the American Jewish community. Attacks he’s suffered for treating Israel honestly on his show, for having the temerity to highlight its misdeeds.
They are the same attacks I have felt repeatedly, both for my own critiques of Israel and for my reconciliation with a Palestinian family after an encounter with terrorism. They are the same attacks an increasing number of committed Jews are feeling – Jews invested in Israel who are willing to speak out about Israel’s misdeeds. Of course, anyone who critiques Israel these days is subject to such attacks, from Steven Salaita to Conflict Kitchen.
However, as a Jew, Stewart passionately focused on those attacks which have been made against him by fellow Jews. In doing so, he crafted a rebuttal so on-point that I felt as though he were speaking not just for me, but for the countless other Jews who have critiqued Israel and paid a price for doing so.

Responding to the idea that “pro-Israel” Jewish institutions and hawkish Jews now gauge one’s Jewishness by a political metric – a willingness to fervently back Israel’s government – Stewart first offered a measured insight:

It’s so interesting to me that people want to define who is a Jew and who is not. And normally that was done by people who weren’t Jewish but apparently now it’s done by people who are … You can’t observe (Judaism) in the way you want to observe. And I never thought that that would be coming from brethren. I find it really sad, to be honest.

Stewart’s analysis is spot on. As I’ve written in the past, the conflation of Israel with all Jews, itself an anti-Semitic trope, has become a staple for “pro-Israel” discourse. Israel is viewed as the “Jew” amongst the nations by such people, which means that anyone who critiques or condemns Israel’s actions are, by definition, attacking the Jewish people. Within the Jewish community, that means anyone – even someone like myself, a Jewish educator and author – can not only be smeared as anti-Semitic, but castigated as a Jew worthy of being exiled from the community.
On this topic I get pretty emotional sometimes. Stewart eventually did as well when Dekel confronted him with the idea that he’s not only less Jewish because of his critiques of Israel, but an outright enemy of the Jewish people. Witness Stewart’s emotions crescendo as he opens up:

How are you lesser? How are you lesser? It’s fascistic. And the idea that [other Jews] can tell you what a Jew is. How dare they? That they only know the word of God and are the ones who are able to disseminate it. It’s not right. And it’s something that they’re going to have to reckon with.
I always want to say to people when they come at me like [I’m an enemy]: “I would like Israel to be a safe and secure state. What’s your goal?” So basically we disagree on how to accomplish that but boy do they, I mean, you would not believe the sh-t. You have guys on television saying I’m a Jew like the Jews in the Nazi camps who helped bring the other Jews to ovens. I have people that I lost in the Holocaust and I just … go f-ck yourself. How dare you?

How dare they, indeed.
Such people who are otherwise often rational individuals, sometimes even deeply liberal or progressive, become deeply hateful and irrational when it comes to Israel. And it’s an irrationality borne out of fear. Fear developed by a history of trauma. Fear borne in the Holocaust’s wake. Fear for the existential survival of Israel – the metaphorical lifeline for some American and diaspora Jews who constantly wait for the rug to be pulled from underneath them.
On this point, Stewart had his most poignant thought:

I think [their irrationality] comes from abuse. The danger of oppression is not just being oppressed, it’s becoming an oppressor.

This is precisely why I challenge Israel’s occupation, its settlement expansions, and those Jewish organizations which stand idly and silently by as the country devolves into a one-state entity.
I refuse to stand silently by as the once-oppressed, my people, become oppressors.

-ยง-

What Do You Buy For the Children
David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, published recently by Oneworld Publications.
Follow him on Twitter @David_EHG.
 

55 thoughts on “Jon Stewart's Perfect Response to Criticism He is 'Self-Hating' for Israel Critiques

      • When I read What Do You Buy the Children…, I was shocked that you could really believe that all Palestinians were monsters and that you didn’t ‘know that Palestinian “terrorists” were acting to resist
        the terrorism perpetrated on their people by Israel with the collusion and support of the US govt. However, when I read your account of the fear and paranoia of the Jews after centuries of terrorism and oppression,
        I understood how a people with ALL the power, money and bullets, could still be acting out of fear. I thank you for that.

          • And I find it troubling that you could seemingly be completely oblivious as to the context and source of the rage and desperation that could provoke such a horrific, brutal attack. It’s no excuse or justification. But it’s also pretty clueless to think there’s no context, that the attack was motivated solely on hatred of Jews for being Jews. It’s simply disingenuous to not acknowledge how the occupation, dehumanization, harrassment, dispossession, oppression, injustice, constant violence and powerlessness lead people to such desperation. Most of them don’t go out committing murders, which is why these attacks are indefensible. But their desperation is real and to ignore that reality and where the responsibility for it lies, is to ensure more attacks, more fear, more violence and more grief. Yet it seems to have been exactly what most people have chosen to believe. So afraid to face things that might cause discomfort.

          • The word is spelled m-u-r-d-e-r.
            But it’s also pretty clueless to think there’s no context, that the attack was motivated solely on hatred of Jews for being Jews.”
            Yes, because non Jews usually attend synagogue.

    • No, BDS absolutely does not promote the destruction of Israel as a state. Its a technique to show Israel that the world does not support racism, discrimination, ethnic cleansing, apartheid nor genocide.
      As long as Israel doesn’t suffer from their inhuman policies, they have no incentive to change.
      Israel was created on the south Africa model, right down to copying their laws to control the ‘natives.
      BDS was used on South Africa. They changed their ways. They still exist. They are now a role model for how to reconcile and turn enemies into friends.
      Israel needs to learn that lesson too.

      • When I read knee jerk responses like this, I weep for the future. Anyone with real knowledge of this conflict would not compare Israel to South Africa. But the debate over this conflict has come down to cookie ccutter knee jerk response s like this one.

  1. Yes, you most certainly do have the right to champion the disgusting BDS campaign. And we have the right to draw appropriate conclusions about that.

    • .
      What you have a right to is critique. What you don’t have a right to is your own facts. Keeping those straight (while remaining respectful) will be your challenge moving forward in this arena, it seems.

  2. We have the right to call b.s. when you seek to whitewash your BDS advocacy with empty statements about supporting two-states. Your support for a two-state solution is as genuine as AIPAC’s.

    • .
      Such a struggle, you and this ‘we’ of whom you speak. The same ‘we’ of whom Stewart and myself speak.
      You haven’t yet crossed into vile smearing territory, but perhaps if you persist, you’ll do us all the favor of providing an example in these comments of precisely what sets Stewart off.

  3. Dear David:
    An analyst ought to analyze; a commentator is better equipped to comment. Your piece lumps the two together.
    With all respect, I think you ran into trouble because, underneath your pro-Stewart rhetoric, you made use of his situation and his words to defend your own situation and your own words. By doing so, you allowed your opponents to fudge the argument.
    Instead, I think you ought to have let Stewart speak for himself and offered your comments about HIM and what HE had to say, leaving your own personna completely out of the discussion. In that way, your antagonists would have been forced to deal with Stewart’s stance, rather than with your own.
    In sum, I think you made it too easy for them to get off the hook.

  4. David, if you’re so concerned about the Jewish people, why aren’t you denouncing the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews)? In a generation or two, they will be the dominant force in the New York area and Israel because of their explosive birth rate. The ideology of Haredim is based on 1)hatred of the goyim, 2) contempt for non-Jewish culture and education and 3) denigration of women.

  5. It is worth noting that there has developed a harsh coarsening of
    what passes for dialog within both the Israeli Knesset and the U.S.
    Congress. This process has been accelerating over some decades
    and each of these legislative bodies parallels and mirrors the other
    in this. This is no accident. The resulting smothering of any civil
    and closely reasoned discussion, the closing off of civilly allowed
    points of view and the hot-tempered labeling and posturing are a
    looming tragedy for both countries. These phenomena have been
    working their way into the political and social life of both countries,
    in tandem.
    Why? Mere coincidence? Recently, it was sadly mourned by former
    President Carter that “..democracy is broken..” in the U.S. Isn’t the
    same thing happening in Israel, with, for example, pro-peace groups
    actually becoming afraid to stage legitimate discussions in public or
    private, because more and more they have been physically attacked
    and threatened?

  6. I am not Jewish, nor am I Palestinian or Arab. I have suffered the same harsh treatment from my Jewish friends and acquaintances if I mention anything negative about Israel. I point out to them that I am criticizing Israeli government policy that commits atrocities and apartheid against a people they have occupied since 1948, and 1967. I have been called an anti-semite, a Jew-hater, an extremist etc. Why? because I question the policies of a government that receives billlions of dollars of U.S. aid every year without condition, and continues to build settlements (housing denied to Palestinians) in the West Bank and extending into East Jerusalem, considered Palestinian territory by the UN and many countries within the international community. The Israeli government and Israeli lobby strategy to attack and label anyone who criticizes Israel dampens civil discussion and underscores Israel’s national identity as the oppressor. Ironically, this is what was done to the Jews and to every group that has ever been oppressed.

    • Sylvan, maybe you live on another planet, because there is a mountain of evidence that the Zionists committed acts of ethnic cleansing to expel the Palestinians by force from their villages, thereby confiscating their land, their homes, their possessions in 1948. In light of that occurrence Israel refused the right of return for over 700,000 Palestinian refugees. Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish State, but it does not have the right to slaughter people, segregate and harass those who have lived on that land and confiscate property. Palestinians also have the right to exist as a State. The UN recognizes Palestinian territory, and yet Israel ignores the rights of the Palestinians and continues to confiscate land.

      • From 1948-1967 the Palestinians could have established their state on the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza except for one thing. The West Bank and east Jerusalem were annexed by Jordan in 1952. Gaza was under Egyptian military occupation.

      • Israeli’s have killed people, illegally and improperly. The government may have turned a blind eye or condoned some of that in rare instances and actually in the distant past. This is extremely small in comparison to the ongoing support of terrorism in nearly all of the surrounding areas who support the mass slaughter of all Israelis. Historically the local Palestinians have participated or attempted far more and far greater acts of slaughter against the Israelis than Israel ever has. Israel actively takes steps to avert terrorism and slaughter of it’s enemies. Again and again the Palestinian leaders do the opposite. If you think otherwise, you are not educated in the conflict, or you choose not to be or you simply do not like Jews. There are studies that show that people who unfairly condemn Israel, are substantially more likely to have the standard anti-Jewish bias-they control the press, the U.S., the banks-the greedy bloodthirsty Jews. [Personal attack removed] In this string, is the AIPAC condemner.

    • If you were honestly criticizing Israel in context with all of the unfair and inhumane activities in the world, that would be one thing. But to single out Israel as what gives you sufficient indignation to comment, that is what’s questionable. Either you don’t really follow world history, don’t follow the history of the conflict, [personal attack removed] Otherwise, you would find ample cause to comment on other regimes who’s human rights violations are many times more severe. On Israel, if you were fair, you would say, “look at Israel and how in the face of such opposition, they still maintain such an amazing level of human rights even for people who are foresworn to destroy them. They actually have affirmative action for Arab students, freedom of speech and voting rights. They, like all other democracies, are not perfect, but it sure looks like they may be one of, if not the best in terms of respecting and protecting rights”.

  7. Stan, Israel was “forced into a war of survival?” It’s all in one’s perspective. How does colonizing another country and confiscating the land of the Palestinians become a “war of survival” for the Israelis? I think the term could apply equally to the Palestinians. As the Palestinians fought back against the colonizing forces, it was also a “war of survival” for them. If Israelis prefer to see the world only through the lens of what is good for the Israelis, then we cannot achieve any understanding of what it would take to negotiate peace in the region. But if the Israelis could understand that Palestinian homes and land were taken from them by force in 1948, those who refused to leave were slaughtered, under the direction of David Ben Gurion and Plan Dalet, the Irgun and Stern Gang, by a colonizing secular group of Zionists, then perhaps some understanding could occur. At present the colonizing continues under Netanyahu and the Likud party with illegal settlements continuing to be built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

  8. Jane, Israel did not invite the war after it declared independence. President Abbas even acknowledged that the Palestinians and Arab world erred in rejecting the existence of Israel. They wanted everything, meaning they did to want to share. After 1948, the whole Arab world was cleansed of Jews, all those states that chose to invade Israel. You have not a clue. There are over a million Arab citizens of israel. How is that for ethnic cleansing? I weep for for ignorance. Your Jewish friends are right about you.

    • Tom, there is no need for you to be insulting or offensive. I have studied many different points of view about this issue. Israel’s forceful expulsion of the Palestinians STARTED the war. The Israeli narrative that you parrot is clearly evident in your comments. Israel also wanted EVERYTHING. The Palestinians were living on land that the Israeli Zionists were forcefully taking from them. How would you react to such a crime? I think any group whose land is being colonized right under their noses would react by resisting. The PLO did acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a State. However, Israel did and still has not recognized Palestine’s right to exist as a State. Also Israel continues apartheid, segregationist policies against its Arab inhabitants. Israeli Arabs do not share the same rights as Israeli Jews. The reason for that is: Israel wants all of Palestine, and it will do whatever it can do take it, just as it did in 1948.

      • In August 2000 PLO chairmen, Yasser Arafat, rejected an offer that would have met 97% of his demands and walked away form Camp David. President Clinton and negotiator David Ross squarely blamed Arafat for the faille of the peace process. Now Palestinians want to stab their way to a state and that usually does not have a good outcome

      • Go Jane. tom doesn’t really want to hear what you have to say – it’s much easier to stay comfortable in his state of denial. Unfortunately for him, the facts you’ve detailed are slowly becoming known to an increasing number of people. Eventually the zionist myths that are presented as historical fact will be seen for what they are.

        • Sorry Ann, they are FACTS. Jane produced a fictional narrative that she cannot substantiate. I produced a statement by President Abbas that supports claims that the Palestinians and the Arab world collectively rejected partition. They wanted the whole thing. I suggest you set your revisionist myths aside. Was Abbas wrong?

        • Still waiting for the diary, David. Would love to hear you express your unequivocal condemnation of what the Palestinian terrorists did to the Jews in teh synagogue.
          Still waiting . . .

          • Guh, oozing privilege. Yeah, Palestinians do some bad things to Israelis, but that doesn’t fundamentally change the fact that Israel has ALL the power, ALL the money, and ALL the bullets, compared to Palestine (which just has ALL the corpses compared to Israel). Denouncing Palestine the nation for the actions of desperate Palestinians is meaningless. On the other side, Israel continues to pursue a governmental policy of taking what little Palestinians still legally own and then punishing the entire country for the very reasonable reaction of being SUPER PISSED about the whole situation, and denouncing Israel for *as policy* beating people up and stealing their stuff is perfectly reasonable, and morally laudable. There is no cosmic balance here. Israel has not “earned” the right to take a dump on weaker nations just because the Jewish people suffered in the past. A Jewish life is not more precious than a Palestinian one. Israeli-defending-Jews: get over yourselves already. Israel’s behavior towards Palestine is morally indefensible, and the longer Jews defending Israel pretend otherwise, the more their blindness and callousness feeds into anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment. Right now Israel’s status with the US survives on our conservative Christianity’s continued fascination with trying to set off the apocalypse – but the desire to give Israel more money is waning the longer they go without seeing four horsemen flying around and nobody getting raptured and the slow but spreading realization that Muslims may actually be humans.

          • Ask Israelis if they are interested in withdrawing from the West bank and most will say yes. Ask Israelis if the trust that withdraw would bring com pelt peace and most will say no.There are calls form Hams to stab and run down Israelis civilian with their cars. Powerful armies cannot defend against that. Before you become all preachy to Israelis, I suggest you get into their shoes. BTW, those tunnels from Gaza were directed at civilian communities, including one that was directed towards a kindergarten.

      • David GH: 1.” I mourn the loss of those Israeli Jews murdered today in a Jerusalem synagogue, a tragedy covered by mainstream press globally.”
        Why was it necessary to write that last part?

  9. The reality is the BDS movement seeks to end or destroy Israel. The proponents of BDS are aligned with racists, homophobes, terrorists, misogynists and anti semites such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel was bombarded by thousand of rockets from Gaza and more than 30 terror tunnels built to kidnap children inside Israel and rightfully defended their citizens. It is well documented, children were used as human shields by Hamas and UNRWA schools along with their racist “teachers” and hospitals were used to hide bombs. The double standards, delegitimization and demonization of Israel is based on anti Jewish racism and it is regrettable Harris-Gershon and Stewart refuse to highlight this.

    • It’s often difficult to know whether to allow this kind of crude put-down of others on our site. We’d welcome arguments that carefully proved claims that x or y or z statements or positions or movements were racist or anti-Semitic. But this one simply throws around those claims in a way that is irresponsible and libelous. And, by the way, also false. The BDS movement does not seek the destruction of Israel, any more than the abolitionist movement and the civil war sought the destruction of the U.S. The next charge is more complicated when saying ” The proponents of BDS are aligned with racists, homophobes, terrorists, misogynists and anti semites such as Hamas and Hezbollah.” There are such people in movements to which the BDS movement is aligned, as there are racists, homophoes, terrorists, misogynists in the government of Israel, and anti-Semites, and allies with Hamas and Hezbollah in the alliance that the US government (to which Andrew may be paying taxes) is aligned with in fighting ISIS. I know that there were racists, misyogynists, and supporters of terrorism (against Cuba) in the Democratic Party that many of us voted for as a better alternative than the Republicans. So the attempt by Andrew to discredit an entire movement because it has some people who are associated with bad guys misses the reality of the contemporary world. Israel aligned itself with the apartheid regime in South Africa, and supported the US’ genocidal war in Vietnam, and has given special privileges to misogynists and homophobes in the ultra-orthodox world. I critique all of these things, but don’t assume that people who have these alliances are by virtue of that to be dismissed when it comes to other issues. If I did, I’d have no friends left in Israel, since many of the people I value have alliances with others whom I believe are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.

      • I read your statements , Rabbi Lerner’s, with utter shock. You maligning a respondent for making justifiable accusations against the BDS movement. Rabbi Lerner, you might want to look at their aims straight from their website.
        http://www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro
        The campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) is shaped by a rights-based approach and highlights the three broad sections of the Palestinian people: the refugees, those under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinians in Israel. The call urges various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law by:
        “Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall;
        Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
        Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
        – See more at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro#sthash.MmfdN1J7.dpuf
        [Personal attack removed]
        BTW, Rabbi Lerner, the US may be involved in fighting ISIS, but that does not place it in the sam camp as Hamas and Hezbollah.The US does not arm them nor support tier aims. As a matter of fact, Iran, Syria and Iran would prefer ISIS destroy their other opponents such has the Kurds and then mop them up. So I suggest you do not make false accusations.
        [Personal attack removed]

        • Neither I nor Tikkun advocate for the elimination of Israel. We believe that the path currently being followed by the Israeli government is self-destructive and we believe that Israel should be the state of all of its inhabitants. I believe in Israel as an affirmative action Jewish state in two respects: a. giving priority in immigration to Jews who can present a reasonable case that they need to live in Israel to escape persecution or discrimination in the country in which they live b. giving priority to teaching Hebrew, Jewish history and culture and celebrating Jewish holidays, though it should also teach Arabic and English, Islamic and Arab history and culture and holidays and Christian history and culture and holidays as a step toward helping the Jewish majority understand the culture and language of its minority groups. In my book Embracing Israel/Palestine I discuss more fully the best and just way to deal with Arab refugees from 1948 and their descendents. But the kind of sloganeering we see in what is said in these responses, affirming out and out distortions of what I and Tikkun believe, really don’t belong on our pages any more.

          • Rabbi Lerner:
            “giving priority in immigration to Jews who can present a reasonable case that they need to live in Israel to escape persecution or discrimination in the country in which they live b”
            Are you suggesting altering the law of return?

          • BDS targeted a very good employer, Sodastream. They provided well paying jobs o the West Bank. Under pressure, Sodastream set up shop within the green line. BDS continue to target Soda Strem because it set up shop next to a planned Bedouin town. BDS activists storm stores and remove Israeli products from store shelves. The only victory BDS is look for is pushing Jews out of the region all together.

          • Rabbi Lerner: Please stop pretending that BDS is peaceful advocacy. BDS seeks to inflict economic harm on Israeli Jews. BDS seeks an unlimited right of return that would necessarily mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. And far too often BDS actions cross the line of political advocacy into down right anti-Jewish hostility. It is more than reasonable to push back hard against this campaign. You should not provide a safe haven for those eho advocate this kind of hatred.

      • I am rather surprised that you are indignant about the accusations against the BDS movement, yet you seem immune to such accusations that Israel participated in ethnic cleansing in this string. Is it not clear to you that Israel is hated because it’s Jewish, and is being held to unfair standards that no other democracy is held to? Is it not clear that Jews are hated, and that Israel is as well? Why would anyone hold Israel to standards that are not required of other countries abuse human rights on a state level. How could you suborn the rewriting of history that ignores the tremendous role of the anti-Semitic violence initiated by Palestinian leaders in the 1920s under the leadership of the powerful Husseini clan? Jews are hated the world over, and it spills over into an incredible antipathy of Israel. “Liberals” are the most ardently anti-Semetic at present, but that’s not always true. If liberal anti-Semites are not called to task about this rewriting of history and this incredible animus to a good and liberal regime, then Jews are doomed to a future which is uncertain and possibly disposed to yet one more round of extermination by the “liberally” minded. Liberally minded idealism that created Soviet Russia, was not at all healthy for Jews. This new wave anti-Israel, anti-Zionist false history might lead to the same place. It is making a strong start in actually conscripting Jews themselves amongst their minions. Your utopian view of an Israel that allows the self-same people who believe not only in the destruction as a secular state, but the expulsion or death of all Jews in the Middle East-that they should be warmly represented and accepted, is as impractical as Jewish leaders who hoped that by being compliant with the Nazis in Hungary and elsewhere, that they may somehow escape violence. The real world meets liberal openness with violence and conscripts liberals into the realpolitick of a violent and harsh world. Hence, scholars become despots. Look to Sir Thomas More who in Utopia talks of religious tolerance and then as Lord Chancellor, violently surpresses the reformists and Protestants. I suggest you expand your study beyond the liberal treatises that misrepresent the history. While history is elusive at best, relying on one point of view creates a shaded view of that history. Perhaps you are subject to that very bias. Study more Rabbi. Then you will realize that your life is at stake here. Jews have been massacred many many times and under many ideologies. Wise up.

      • Rabbi Lerner: With all due respect, you are simply wrong. Andrew’s comment was not a “crude put down.” He was calling BDS for what it is. Further, you are way off base in stating that BDS does not seek the destruction of Israel. What do you think happens to Israel with the (unlimited) right of return as called for by BDS? There simply is no way to square that objective with the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state. For goodness sakes, even Norman Finkelstein admits that BDS wants Israel gone. There is no mystery about that objective. To that end, it is false and utterly disrespectful to promote the lie that BDS is like the abolitionist movement. Please be honest, sir.

  10. Over the years, I ‘ve witnessed Israel’s evolution. Four decades of growth, expansion economically & geographically. In terms of political & philosophical maturation, the state has regressed to the same degree her military & propaganda might has increased. The ultra-Zionists are intoxicated by the rise of Israel’s rapid rise in power. Such intoxication has led to a delusion that “might makes right.” And so, one is reminded of the fall that comes, ever imperceptibly, round the corner from hubris.Historians in the next generation will account one more episode of folly in the face of greed & disregard for historical lessons. Israel’s days, without doubt, are numbered, like all tyrannies.

    • Would you say that is Israel is no different form imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union? I mean, Israel is huge. It’s the size of the state of New Jersey.It certainly is the cause of all things wrong in the world. When it’s gone, there will be peace in the Middle East and around the world.

      • wow it’s fascinating how you have just re-written his entire message and pretend that’s what he actually wrote. Maybe your reading comprehension needs just a bit of work.

          • ‘Israel’s days, without doubt, are numbered, like all tyrannies.”
            Ann is the openly democracy in the Middle East a regime of tyranny?

  11. Jon Stewart changed his name for a reason. He’s another ultra-liberal Hollywood type who worships himself and his belief he is too smart for everyone else to see through his pointed politics. The fact that he lost people in the Holocaust doesn’t mean for one minute that he wishes he wasn’t Jewish and could scrub it away. It’s clear how much effort and focus he places on the Palestinian issue when there are numerous others that make that conflict look like kindergarden.
    Speaking with people who know Jon has been about hearing everything I expected. And yes, Israel’s days are numbered, which means there will be no Jewish rights whatsoever I the middle east. Funny how Jon never mentions the Palestine charter, which cites the Koran and the killing of the Jew. Perhaps he realizes that bigger money is now Arab oil money and the power they wield. That’s who Jon and his ego worship.

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