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Whether they are comedians or anyone else, those who identify as “pro-Palestinian” are not any more interested in dialogue about the situation than the Hamas terrorists who started the current conflict with their attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Rather than convening a gathering that would allow those on both sides of the divide to hear each other out and perhaps even share a few laughs at the expense of their own cause, the organizers were forced to confront a stark fact about the conflict. Jews like Zoldan who organized a “Comics for Kamala” group during the presidential election may be willing to listen to opposing views in an effort to find common ground and perhaps even a path towards compromise and peace. But those who hate Israel and who have spent the last 14 months since the Oct. 7 massacres spreading lies about the war that aren’t so different from traditional antisemitic blood libels view such opportunities differently. They are incapable of viewing the conflict as anything but a zero-sum game in which supporters of Israel are malevolent individuals to be shunned and denounced as backers of “genocide.”
An unbridgeable gap
The response from the comedians who were invited and others who publicly sided with them was as discouraging as it was emphatic. As the New York Post reported, 21 comedians were invited to join the conversation from the Palestinian side, and all refused. As a result, the show has been canceled.
Palestinian comedian Eman El-Husseini responded by saying, “Thanks for reaching out, but I cannot share the stage with zionazzzis while my people and Arabs in the region are being decimated and genocided so Israelis can have beach houses in more land that’s not theirs.”
Libyan comedian Mohanad Elshieky said in an Instagram post that the event was “a “little debate about why m*rdering children is wrong.”
Others on the left who were invited to attend as audience members were similarly uninterested in being part of anything that might normalize discussions with supporters of Israel.
New Yorker magazine food critic Helen Rosner, who describes herself on her Instagram profile page as “Just another Jew who wants to free Palestine,” poured scorn on the organizers of the event in a thread on the left-wing social media site Bluesky. “Some comedy club in NYC is apparently putting on a “both sides” night about Israel’s annihilation of Gaza,” Rosner wrote. She went on to proclaim that though the invitation expressed the hope that, “My presence would “add to our efforts in building a more inclusive community” … I have zero interest in building an inclusive community that’s inclusive of people whose position is “mass slaughter and dispossession is fine actually.”
The positions expressed by this trio sound extreme, but they are very much in sync with the sort of things said and/or chanted at pro-Hamas rallies on college campuses and in the streets of cities like New York. Moreover, they are a direct reflection of the ideology that drives opponents of Israel. As their comments indicate, the “pro-Palestine” cause is not about seeking a Palestinian Arab state living in peace alongside Israel. It is one that opposes the existence of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders are drawn, because it doesn’t recognize the right of Jews to any part of their ancient homeland.
While Palestinian groups like Hamas openly proclaim their desire to carry out the genocide of the Jews, something that was made clear by the atrocities terrorists undertook on Oct. 7: The “Free Palestine” crowd smears the Israelis for carrying out a fictional genocide. And they view Zionism—the national liberation movement of the Jewish people—as akin to Nazism, which like their genocide claims is a classic inversion of the truth and textbook definition of antisemitism.
What Palestinians want
It’s easy to dismiss this story as a minor kerfuffle about a misguided effort to inject comedy into the debate about the Middle East. But it should be seen as providing more insight into the gap between the two sides than perhaps many liberal Jews who are still seeking dialogue have been willing to admit. The failure of this initiative speaks volumes about how toxic leftist ideas like critical race theory, settler-colonial theory and intersectionality have made dialogue or efforts to promote compromise solutions on a whole range of topics—of which Israel is just one—impossible. It also shows how the pervasive influence of this destructive intellectual fashion is more or less killing comedy.
If the debate about the Middle East were really, as liberals have long insisted, about the imperative for Israel to trade “land for peace” or its need to avoid building homes in Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria, then dialogue intended to build trust on both sides would be not only possible but necessary. But as decades of Palestinian rejection of every compromise offered to them have shown, if that would mean recognition of the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Middle East, that is a price they are not willing to pay. Meaning, the conflict is not about borders or settlements.
The Palestinian Arabs and their supporters abroad who have rallied to their cause since Oct. 7 have made no secret of the fact that what they desire is turning back the clock to 1948 or 1917 and the elimination of Israel. Being so quick to manufacture lies about Israeli actions and intentions is not just a manifestation of Jew-hatred, though that’s part of it. Those who buy into the myth that Israel is a manifestation of a “settler-colonial” imperialism are drawn inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing at all to talk about with Israelis or their supporters.
The anti-Israel movement’s adoption of this frame of reference is reflected in more than just the intolerant invective employed in the social-media ravings of those comics and others who believe that even a debate with Zionists would compromise their moral standing as progressives. Much like the best-selling book by anti-Zionist author Ta-Nehisi Coates, their accusations hurled against Israel are not merely divorced from the facts of what has actually happened in Gaza; they ignore the genocidal goals of the Palestinians, their embrace of terrorism and their unwillingness to compromise.
Such sentiments have, due to the progressives’ adoption of woke ideologies that falsely label Jews and Israelis as “white oppressors,” migrated from the ivory towers of academia to the political grassroots. This was made apparent as first President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris spent the 2024 presidential campaign trying to placate their party’s left-wing base, which has grown increasingly intolerant of any stand on the Middle East that isn’t resolutely opposed to Israel.
Woke is killing comedy
The impact of these toxic ideas is not limited to politics. It is also a major reason why comedy—or at least the sector of it that is pitched to appeal to the half of the country that didn’t vote for Donald Trump—is dying.
For years, comedians have decried the stultifying impact that a spirit of political correctness has had on their craft. As anyone who has watched the political skits that appear on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” or the monologues of the late-night comedy shows that don’t appear on Fox News, liberals can only accept humor that pokes fun at their political foes or those who hold different views about religion and culture. Edgy humor that doesn’t respect the shibboleths of woke sensibilities about certain protected minorities is no longer tolerated. Groundbreaking comedians of the past, like Lenny Bruce, had to navigate the intolerance of established society and the conservative values of the 1950s and early 1960s. Today, someone like him doesn’t have to worry about being arrested for offending decency codes. But they would surely be canceled by the left that dominates popular culture.
The result of this cultural trend is that much of what is now considered comedy is humorless virtue-signaling, essentially a nod to audiences’ shared contempt for those outside of their group.
Until mainstream culture shakes itself free of this leftist orthodoxy, efforts to arrange such joint events will always fail. Conversations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian comics, as well as their audiences, are impossible in a cultural context where progressives in America have declared that we are all locked in an endless race war between oppressors and victims.
Under these circumstances, pursuing dialogue across the unbridgeable gap between those who want to destroy Israel and those who work to support it is a fool’s errand. And that’s no joke.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.
