Trevor Noah, host of US late night talk show The Daily Show, used his program to accuse Israel of abusing its power in defending itself against the barrage of over 1,200 rockets fired from Gaza, claiming that Israel is fighting unfairly, and likening the power difference between Israel and Hamas as bringing a “knife to a gunfight.”
“What makes Israel-Palestine such a difficult topic to even broach is all the layers that are packed into it,” said Noah, who has no background knowledge of the topic – at least none that he mentioned – and did not bring in any experts but chose to talk about it himself.
“No matter how much you try and break it down, people are always going to say that you’re leaving out some crucial piece of context. And you know what? You’re probably right,” he said.
He added, “I don’t want to have that argument and the noise that goes back and forth on this thing because, honestly, I don’t know that any TV show in 10 minutes is going to come close to solving Israel-Palestine.”
Noah listed a summary up until that point of the numbers of dead and wounded among Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, without putting the figures into context of issues such as Hamas purposely launching rockets from crowded civilian areas in Gaza.
He used those figures to justify saying, “Personally, I cannot watch that footage and hear those numbers and see a fair fight.”
He then appeared to blame Israel for having the Iron Dome, as if somehow that gave it no right to protect itself from Hamas.
He next posted what he terms an “honest” question. “If you are in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you?”
He continued, “What’s the right response? Everyone has a different answer to the question. And I’m not trying to answer the question, nor do I think I’m smart enough to solve it. All I’m asking is: when you have this much power, what is your responsibility?”