A Tale of Two Comedians
History does matter
A Tale Of Two Comedians.
There are two comedians on HBO who do a “serious” show about current events and especially politics. I watch and enjoy them both. One is John Oliver, the other Bill Maher. John Oliver’s last show infuriated me and Bill Mahr’s made me stand up and cheer. Both had a segment on Israel and the recent war with Gaza. Comedians and pundits for that matter, do not have to always agree with me, heck my wife doesn’t most of the time, but they do have to respect context and history.
The tell for where John Oliver was going was at the very beginning when he said,” If you are not fluent in middle East history I know this can seem overwhelming. The latest chapter in a long story you haven’t read. So I’m not going to try to recap the history here……But this week has actually been a pretty good reminder that while somethings are incredibly complex and require a great deal of context, others are just plain wrong.”
Thank you, John, for deciding for all of us when historical background and context matter. I have a question for you. When does it not matter?
Imagine a 20 year old with a limited knowledge of world war 2 (not a big stretch since according to a Washington Post story on April 12 2018, two thirds of millennials don’t know about Auschwitz, and 22 percent say they haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they’ve heard of it) walking into a 2 hour movie about world War 2 after one hour and a half have passed, just in time to see the allies bombing Berlin and thinking to himself how horrible the Americans were in this war or that the US was guilty of horrific war crimes in that war! Context always matters. If you do not know the history and what preceded the event you have no right to express an opinion.
This latest war did not start in May or the previous Gaza war or the Yom Kippur War or the Six day War, or the war of liberation in 1948. It began when the Jews decided to come home to what had always been their home and where Jews had lived under one occupier or another for the 2000 years of diaspora. Jews were there before Arabs existed, before Islam was started and certainly before the Palestinians had a thought about nationalism.
The following story probably never happened but it is a true story.
A few days before Passover, the Israeli ambassador got up to speak at the U.N. “Ladies and gentlemen”, he said. “I have much to say, but before I begin, let me tell you an old Passover story, as the holiday is almost upon us.
When Moses was leading the Jews out of Israel, he had to cross the near endless Sinai desert. The Israelites were so thirsty they could hardly go on. So Moses struck the side of a mountain with his staff, and a pond appeared with crystal clean water. Now the people rejoiced and drank to their hearts content.
But Moses wished to cleanse his entire body, so he went to the other side of the pond, took off his clothes and dove in. Only when he came out did he discover his clothes had been stolen. And I have good reason to believe that the Palestinians stole Moses’ clothes.”
At this point, the Palestinian delegate jumped out of his chair and screamed, “You lying fool! Everyone knows there were no Palestinians at that time!”
“Exactly”, said the Israel Ambassador. “And with that, I will begin my speech.”
The context of this last war is not Israeli Colonialism, or Sheik Jarrah or the fighting on the Temple Mount. The context is the refusal of the Palestinians to accept the existence of a Jewish State anywhere from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan. They turned down a UN offer of a major Palestinian State in 1947 so that a much smaller Jewish State would not be able to exist. After Egypt and Syria threatened Israel’s existence in 1967 Israel won the defensive war of 1967 and captured the West bank and Gaza. Within a year Palestinians were murdering Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Palestinians were hijacking jets and in one case hijacked a jet and had it flown to Entebbe where they separated out not the Israelis but the Jews from the rest of the passengers. An offer for a Palestinian state from Prime minister Ehud Barak was turned down by Yasser Arafat and unleashed an intifada. Bombs went off on buses and in restaurants, and at Public Seders and a disco, so that over 1000 Israelis were killed because the Palestinians would rather not have a Palestinian state then share the land with Israel. Two other even more generous offers were turned down.
In 2005 the very right-wing Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon evacuated all Israelis from Gaza and turned it over to the Palestinian Authority. By 2007 Hamas had defeated the Palestinian Authority and taken over Gaza and according to their charter were committed to ending the Jewish State. The blockade of Gaza did not start the Hamas takeover, it was in fact a response to the bombings from Gaza of Israeli population centers. It is also important to remember that Israel cannot blockade Gaza by itself. There are two portals of entry to and from Gaza, and the Arab country Egypt controls one of the portals.
I am sorry John, but Israel is not “just plain wrong”, and your colleague Bill Maher understands that.
He described his frustration the past two weeks watching the liberal media’s coverage of the war with “no one on liberal media to defend Israel, really. We’ve become this country now that we’re kind of one-sided on this issue.”
Then he did the exact opposite of John Oliver. He appealed for history and context on the issue.
“And I’d also like to say off the bat I don’t think the kids understand- and when I say kids I mean the younger generations- you can’t learn history from Instagram. There’s just not enough space.” He then showed maps of the Palestine and Israel as proposed by the UN Partition committee and showed what the Palestinians gave up so there would be no Israel.
He continued by going after the celebrity influencers like Bella Hadid whose Multi-millionaire father is Palestinian, for her support of the Palestinians and cited her published chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
And so we return the initial Palestinian premise. For Palestine to be free from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River can only happen if there is no Israel anywhere. Who is calling for genocide now?
Context and history matter, but in the diluted of knowledge and complexity of the Twitter world its all about likes and followers, which leads me to one last area of concern. Why are many young Jews criticizing Israel, but that is for another blog.
Israel is not perfect and there may be some interesting changes in the politics of Israel if the new coalition holds, but for me always, “Am Yisroel Chai”
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