John Oliver has gone viral for the first time in ages after he called out people for ‘both-siding’ the current situation in Israel and Palestine, urging the need to “start having this conversation honestly”.
On yesterday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver called Israel’s current attacks on Palestine “the latest chapter in a long story you haven’t read,” which is a surprisingly succinct way of summing up a conflict that’s been going on for decades.
The violence that has flared up this week stemmed from protests in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.
Oliver started out by saying that this was more than just a “real estate dispute”. Palestinians in East Jerusalem – which is not part of Israel – are being kicked out of their family homes by Israeli settlers.
He also mentioned that while Palestinian groups such as Hamas did fire over 1,000 rockets at Israel, most of those didn’t cause much damage because of Israel’s super high-tech Iron Dome defense system. Meanwhile, Israel is literally bombing entire apartment blocks into rubble in Palestine.
“[Israeli rockets] hit their targets, including a house in a refugee camp, a building housing the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, and [a] 13-storey office and apartment building,” he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfWqsxKI9mk
All this brings us to outsiders mischaracterising the situation as a ‘both sides’ kind of conflict when, in reality, there’s a really massive power imbalance going on.
At the time of writing, 10 Israeli civilians have been killed, compared to over 200 Palestinian civilians.
Once again, John Oliver — a comedian — does a better job providing context than seasoned journalists: https://t.co/SVvZwXtC4k
— Henriette Chacar هنريت شقر (@HenrietteChacar) May 17, 2021
“There is a real tendency, particularly in America, to ‘both sides’ this situation. And I am not saying that there aren’t some areas where that’s warranted, but it’s important to recognise there are also areas where it’s simply not,” Oliver said.
“Both sides are firing rockets, but one side has one of the most advanced militaries in the world.
“Both sides are suffering heart-breaking casualties, but one side is suffering them exponentially more.”
He said that no matter how you view the ongoing violence, we all need to stop obfuscating the heart-breaking situation on the ground as if the Israel-Palestine conflict is some kind of team sport.
“If you believe Israel’s actions are warranted and proportionate this week, you’re welcome to try and make that argument, but we have got to start having this conversation honestly,” Oliver said.
“Falling back on convenient, sanitised terms like ‘real estate dispute’ and ‘airstrikes on militants’ feels a little disingenuous when what you’re describing is forcing people from the homes they’ve lived in for decades, and killing civilians and children.”
Wow. John Oliver said it out loud. https://t.co/dpJAMawJSJ
— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) May 17, 2021
Oliver also made the all-important note that it is important to respect the nuance of the situation, but that doesn’t mean whitewashing war crimes and other atrocities being committed against Palestine.
“None of this frees Hamas from responsibility, but Hamas doesn’t represent all Palestinians, just as what Israel is doing right now doesn’t represent all Israelis or indeed all Jewish people,” he said.
https://twitter.com/MohanadElshieky/status/1394142940256157698
As usual, the John Oliver mic-drop was bang-on.
“For decades, the backbone of America’s policy in the Middle East has been that America is an ‘unwavering friend to Israel’, which is a great thing to try and be,” he said.
“But at the end of the day, I would hope that a real friend would tell me when I’m being an asshole, and definitely when I’m committing a fucking war crime.”
