The really amazing stuff starts at 3:44:
“It’s the möbius strip of issues! There’s only one side!”
As M.J. Rosenberg says, Stewart did something very brave here. Look, I think we all can agree that Hamas is a group of idiots, and sure, them shooting rockets is a bad, stupid, and evil thing. But Stewart dares to note that Israel hasn’t exactly been good to the Palestinians either. That there is, in fact, more than one side to the issue. And that both sides should get an airing.
For this, I’m sure he will be pilloried as being anti-Semitic, because despite being Jewish and having sung “Can I Interest You in Hanukkah?” Stewart clearly hates all Jews, because he has a nuanced view of what’s happening in the Middle East. As for me, I appreciate that at least one newscast dared to step up and note that we are getting just one side of this story. And I’m totally unsurprised that it’s The Daily Show
I don’t think he’s a self hating Jew but then again I don’t think Anne Coulter is a self hating woman.
“If there’s a guy banging on your door saying, ‘I’m going to come in and kill you,'” would you like us to respond with one police officer or with all the resources available?”
Are you fucking kidding me? If there’s one guy who, despite his bombast, doesn’t pose a substantial threat to my existence, then one police officer will be fine. Maybe two. Save the SWAT team for a real emergency.
For me, this is one of those moments where the tension between Stewart’s need to maintain a comedic persona and the gravity, the horror, of what he’s discussing becomes apparent. Another Jon Stewart becomes more apparent. That Jon Stewart seems frustrated that there’s only so much he can say.
You know, I usually like what you write here and when you were at Shakesville, but there is really no need for you to do that whole ‘OMG the jews are so stupid they can’t tell the difference between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel those stupid twits.’ When people start doing that, it becomes a silencing tactic.
“It’s the möbius strip of issues! There’s only one side!”
Great quote.
“That Jon Stewart seems frustrated that there’s only so much he can say.”
And there’s only so much he can say because The Daily Show is not a newscast. It’s a comedy show. Making you laugh is a higher priority than informing you in an objective fashion.
Which is not to say that there aren’t two sides to the story – there certainly are. And its not to say that a satirical take on the news is not a valid form of entertainment. But satire is not meant to be objective. The Daily Show primary purpose is to entertain, not inform. It doesn’t seem to be the place to go for an objective look at the news.
RonF, I wonder if you’re giving Stewart and/or his writers enough credit for trying to make a difference. Seems to me that when The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, are at they’re best, they’re effective satire, not mere “let’s forget it all and have a laugh” comedy. Yes, it’s fake news, but much of it is also serious commentary ON the news.
“Making you laugh is a higher priority than informing you in an objective fashion.”
See also almost every other show named for individuals: “Hannity & Colmes,” “O’Reilly Factor,” “Rush Limbaugh,” plus some that aren’t/weren’t: “Crossfire,” “Hardball.” Objectivity isn’t the goal for any of these, but people still get news from them.
” Objectivity isn’t the goal for any of these, but people still get news from them. ”
we wont get objectivity from any of the following either:
government information offices
news organizations
public relations offices
newspapers
blogs
radio commentary/news
history books
politics
magazines
everyday conversation
bus ads for a domestic violence shelter
There is no firm ground to stand on.
PG, to tell you the truth I’ve never listened to any of those reports you listed so I can’t comment directly on any of them. Except Rush Limbaugh. I once worked in an office that was 400 yards from the antenna for the 50,000 watt Chicago AM radio station that broadcast him. I could literally pick up my phone and listen to his show on the handset.
Not that I did for any length of time. Early in his career I was watching “Nightline” when he was on. Ted Koppel asked him what kind of journalism he practiced and Rush replied “I’m not a journalist – I’m an entertainer.” That was enough for me.
I think this is a little unfair; Jeff didn’t say “the Jews” at all. The people who are overly eager to see antisemitism in harsh criticism of Israel include both Jews and non-Jews, in my experience.
The ironic thing is, your comment can certainly be read as accusing Jeff of antisemitism; the statement you attribute to him, about Jews being so stupid, is certainly antisemitic. Is that what you intended?
later, when the bombing has a less visceral effect on me, i’ll be able to think more rationally about the technical brilliance of this episode’s script, because it really is genius. it’s discomfiting too, the way the laughter folds into the tragedy. but that’s the best humour, i suppose. — or maybe ‘best’ on a theoretical level, only. because what ‘best’ would really mean (on a practical, pragmatic, ‘real’ level) would be having proof that this episode shifted people’s opinions
I think this is a little unfair; Jeff didn’t say “the Jews” at all. The people who are overly eager to see antisemitism in harsh criticism of Israel include both Jews and non-Jews, in my experience.
Exactly. I think most Jews — like most humans — know that there isn’t a particular position on Israel’s military actions that are more- or less-anti-Semitic. But there are plenty of people out there who view any criticism of Israel as equal to being anti-Jewish; click on the link to M.J. Rosenberg’s post for a good example.
Are you fucking kidding me? If there’s one guy who, despite his bombast, doesn’t pose a substantial threat to my existence, then one police officer will be fine. Maybe two. Save the SWAT team for a real emergency.
And please, officer, feel free to cuff him instead of shooting him in the face.
Pingback: links for 2009-01-08 « The Mustard Seed
Commentary on the news via satire is certainly useful. I like it. Hell, I go all the way back to TW3. Just remember, though, that it’s commentary, not news.
“If there’s a guy banging on your door saying, ‘I’m going to come in and kill you,’” would you like us to respond with one police officer or with all the resources available?”
If I’m home the appropriate resource will be an ambulance. The cops can go somewhere else where they’re needed. I can go down to the Police station and file the report on the discharge of a firearm later.
I myself am a bit tired of “nuance” being the best one can expect. I am too tired to even talk about this stuff anymore with anyone here in the US. So instead I will just post a little story.
PALESTINE
I once met a man standing outside his house, locked in struggle with a snarling dog that was chained to a tree. The man was beating the chained dog with a baseball bat, and the dog was snarling and snapping, trying to bite the man’s arm as it brought the bat down.
“Stop!” I shouted. “What in the world are you doing?”
The man stopped for a moment and turned to me.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I have to beat this dog; he keeps trying to bite me.”
“But why not just stop beating him and walk away?”
“Then I would be giving my yard up to him.”
“But maybe he would stop attacking you if you stopped beating him.”
“I have to defend myself.”
“But when did he start this snarling and biting?”
“Always. Ever since I first got him and chained him up around this tree, and it got even worse when I stopped feeding him. See? Just something in his breeding.”
Note: In commenting on what I saw that day, I am required by all conventions of American polite discourse to say, “But, of course, I don’t approve of dogs biting people…” I am also required to see some sort of moral equivalence here, or maybe even to say, “of course, I totally support the man’s inalienable right to chain and starve his dog.”
Hmm, for the record I am also sick and tired of the meme that Jews are a rabid anti-semitic card playing fools, and yeah, I do see this post as feeding off of and into that. But then you can turn around and say that that means I’m accusing Jeff of anti-semitism, which obviously just makes me one of those rabid anti-semitic card playing fools, and there you go!
Tara – The idea expressed hear and elsewher is not referring to “Jewish people accusing people of anti-semitism” but “Supporters of the actions of the current Israeli state accusing people of anti-semitism”. There’s a huge difference between those two. In your comment you run together people who support the actions of the current Israeli state and Jewish people. To do so silences many people and perpetuates the idea that ‘Jews’ are a monolith.
If criticizing Israel’s actions makes one anti-semitic or even anti-Israeli, then how do you explain these folks? Self hating? Unpatriotic? Or just people who think that their government is not doing the right thing and want to change things. (Sorry about the language.)
To be fair, Dianne, no one on this thread has claimed that “criticizing Israel’s actions makes one anti-semitic or even anti-Israeli.”
I do think that there is a real problem of unfair accusations of antisemitism being leveled at even non-antisemitic harsh criticisms of Israel, but no one’s done that in this thread, that I’ve seen.
Amp: I apologize for making unfair accusations. I meant the comment as a response to the (hypothetical) people accusing Jon Stewart of being anti-semitic because he criticized Israel’s actions, but can see that it did not read that way.
My secondary motivation was that I was so happy to find an example of Israelis actively engaging in organized resistance to the war–and getting media attention for doing so–that I posted the link on a weak excuse. I know that Israel isn’t a monolith–some of the harshest critics of Israeli foreign policy that I know are Israelis–but the media practially never shows that. The subtext is, presumably, that we outside Israel, Jewish or non-Jewish, may criticize Israel from a “safe distance” but that everyone in Israel feels so threatened that they support any action against the Palestinians, even if they might otherwise feel that it is excessive.
But please note, what was actually said:
It’s passive voice and doesn’t specify anyone at all. The way I think it actually tends to work, how I have seen it work, is that talking about antisemitism becomes the line drawn. Someone who objects to both antisemitism and Israeli actions — too many people refuse to deal with such nuance. People who support Israel’s actions but also make legitimate criticisms of antisemitism — please.
And can we admit that many Jews have internalized antisemitism? Seriously, it’s not a radical idea to suggest either that most Jews have internalized some antisemitism or that some Jews through history have been prominent and dangerous antisemites. Isn’t it possible we can criticize some Jews here and there without calling for their social death? If not, is there any way we can talk about internalized antisemitism at all?
You know, I just read this article online as I was looking around for news about anti-semitism
http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2008/2008-03/200803-Opinions-Gorenberg.html
and it occurred to me that maybe the problem is that some Muslims are a lot anti-Jewish and anti-Christian and some are just an eensy weensy bit so, some Jews are a lot anti-Muslim and anti-Christian and some an eensy weensy bit so, and some Christians are a lot anti-Jewish and anti-Muslims and some an eensy weensy bit so.
The problem is that deep down all of us are a little bit bigoted or prejudiced against other faiths or lack of faiths or faiths in general. And some of us are a lot so. And when we are a lot so, we do what humans tend to do – we find an excuse to kill each other.
The way I think it actually tends to work, how I have seen it work, is that talking about antisemitism becomes the line drawn.
See now, I dismissed Tara’s accusation of antisemitism or “feeding” antisemitism because she didn’t explain what she meant and it sounded like she did indeed refer to criticism of Israel.
The ironic thing is, your comment can certainly be read as accusing Jeff of antisemitism; the statement you attribute to him, about Jews being so stupid, is certainly antisemitic. Is that what you intended?
No, that wasn’t ironic. I didn’t accuse Jeff of anything, and tried to go down the ‘what you said, not what you are’ route. In Julie’s post ‘Dear Non-Jewish Activists,’ she said something very similar to my first comment. So often on the left that meme is used, that ‘Jews are so stupid they can’t tell the difference’ and I thought that Jeff was contributing to it without having any provocation.
I’m sure you are right that legitimate criticism of Israel is sometimes conflated with anti-Semitism (though I see this more in stupid internet comments than on a real political level) but it is also true that a lot of anti-Semitism is weaved into legitimate criticism of Israel. It silences critics of this very real anti-Semitism when people on the left scoff at the idea of this being possible.
Carina, I doubt large numbers of people use the meme “Jews are so stupid that they can’t tell the difference.” I’ve never seen that claim made.
What I have seen some say is that Jews further our political ends by pretending that legitimate criticism of Israel is antisemitism. In other words, we’re not accused of being stupid; we’re accused of being sneaky and arguing in bad faith. (And, obviously, that accusation against the Jews is antisemitic.)
I don’t “scoff” at the obviously true claim that some people make antisemitic criticisms of Israel, or cloak antisemitism in criticisms of Israel. (I’m pretty sure Jeff wouldn’t scoff at that claim, although of course he can speak for himself.)
Nonetheless, I think it’s also true that some supporters of Israel (both Jewish and gentile) incorrectly conflate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. And this, too, has a silencing effect.
I actually have run into the “Jews are so stupid” meme, though it is never stated quite so baldly. Usually, it takes this form: I am in a conversation with someone who knows that I am Jewish–and it doesn’t seem to matter whether they know my politics are left-leaning or not–and the moment I want to analyze the anti-Semitism in a critique of Israel, that person feels the need to instruct me that, you know, not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. And it is the instructional tone more than anything else that gets to me; I can handle differing, intellectually, reasonably, over whether a particular critique of Israel is or is not antisemitic; I can even handle someone accusing me outright of playing the antisemite card–because in each of those cases the other person’s position is clear and either we will agree or disagree. But when someone thinks that because I am Jewish I need to be instructed how not to see antisemitism in every criticism of Israel–and I have seen the same people who feel this need not bat an eye when someone who is not Jewish says almost precisely the same thing I did–that is also antisemitism, and it is I think more common than some people commenting here are aware of, and I have to say I sympathize with the people in this thread who have expressed their frustration about this, even though I don’t think any commenters or posters here have actually engaged in this form of antisemitism.
It seems to me this discussion has evolved into a argument over semantics, when the main point has been pushed aside.
Jake nailed the subject in his story about the dog being beaten by it’s owner. We are talking about a nation, be it ever so small, of people that are oppressed and being attacked unmercifully. The one sided reports are caused by Israel’s control of the media. Palestinian’s are too busy ducking to be able to give their side.
Bravo Jake on staying on task!
The one sided reports are caused by Israel’s control of the media.
Hmm, this sounds familiar.
Israel’s banning or restricting foreign media from covering the war. But it seems that information is obviously being reported by other sources, given that there has been coverage.
Foreign reporters told to not bother to show up at the border of Gaza.
But this is a governmental action and it’s not the only government that’s done this. The United States does this for wars, including its ban against taking pictures of the coffins of dead soldiers returning to the United States. As one person said in one article, war is about public relations as much as anything else.
Radfem said:
As one person said in one article, war is about public relations as much as anything else.
Or, as I believe Rudyard Kipling put it a century ago, “The first victim of war is truth.”
Wars are not just fought on the battlefield with bombs and bullets anymore. Pictures and reports and public opinions can lose you the war even as you win the battles. All parties to this war – or any war, these days – control what images are published and what reports are made.
Jon Stewart is great. He shows you that you should not confuse religion (Judaism) and politics (Israel’s crazy govt.). You can be against the injustice that Israel has constantly perpetuated ever since the land was stolen from the Palestinians in 1948 WITHOUT hating the Jews. That is my stance on things. I have no problem with any religion-but I have a problem with those radical leaders of Israel hiding under the religious shield of Judaism.
Pingback: What We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) When We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) antisemitism and Israel - 5 « It’s All Connected…
Pingback: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » What We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) When We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) antisemitism and Israel - 5
isn’t it ironic that (fools)/comedians are far more likely to be the ones who tell the truth than the organizations and individuals we entrust with informing us.
while I would not get my news from “the daily show or the “colbert report’, i do love to see how they enterpret it. while their bias for more pregressive ideas, policies and foreign relations than have been than have been coming from the republicans and the white house until january 20th is obvious their idealogical bias does not prevent them from taking on their own team when they deserve it.
i doubt that the nuanced views espoused by jon stewart on the daily show about the iraeli palestinian death struggle do him any good at temple, but I admire his principled and brave stand.
anyone remember his appearance on crossfire where he admonished them for being bad for civil discourse and the country. the hosts of the corresponding fox show in typical dishonesty or lack of self awareness crowed about how the crossfire folks were dressed down but didn’t invite stewart for the same treatment.
the mainstream media did their best to bury it, but stephen colberts brave stand at the bush white house press dinner where he took the bush administration to task for dishonesty in the buildup to the iraq war AND the mainstream media for laying down for them. If it wasn’t for the internet that would have been successfully buried.
yes they are entertainers, but they are still far more balanced and fair than the pundit/entertainer/shills who claim to be delivering news.
Pingback: Richard Jeffrey Newman - What We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) When We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) antisemitism and Israel — 5