In his segment Sunday night, Oliver presented a recounting of the events surrounding the current conflict in Israel that was either intentionally misleading or shockingly ill-informed.
By MARK GOLDFEDERJOHN OLIVER at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.(photo credit: REUTERS)
John Oliver’s pompous and uneducated moral relativism is unacceptable and amounts to nothing short of antisemitic support for murderous terrorism. HBO should be utterly ashamed.In his segment Sunday night, Oliver presented a recounting of the events surrounding the current conflict in Israel that was either intentionally misleading or shockingly ill-informed. He repeatedly framed it as a struggle between the Palestinians and Israelis. Perhaps someone should tell him that this is not a battle between Palestinians and Israelis, it is between Hamas, a US designated terrorist organization, and Israel, a US ally.Oliver claims that while some things are incredibly complex and require context, others are just wrong. He is right about that at least: Hamas is a terrorist organization that indiscriminately targets civilians, operating under a charter that calls for the killing of every Jewish man, woman and child. Israel is a democratic nation that did not start this fight, and with great restraint tries hard to avoid any civilian casualties.But Oliver thinks the story is simple because there is a severe power imbalance between Hamas and Israel, which has led to more casualties for Hamas. Oliver barely pays lip service to the idea that terrorists firing rockets at civilians is unacceptable, before shamefully giving them a pass because Israel, a country that invests in research and development instead of cross-border attack tunnels, has managed to intercept many, but not all of the deadly missiles.In Oliver’s antisemitic opinion, it is OK to shoot at innocent Jewish people as long as they are fast enough to run away, at least much of the time.Of course, it matters little to Simple John that Hamas started this fight by targeting innocent Israelis. Would Oliver be happier if more innocent Jews were dead? Would that make it more of a fair fight? In his little fantasy world is it OK to kill just a few innocent Jews, and then cry “stop it” when their country hits back?Proportionality in wartime is not what Oliver thinks it is. Article 8(2)b(4) of the Rome Statute recognizes that civilian casualties are a terrible but inevitable part of conflict, and forbids attacks in which the anticipated civilian casualties will be excessive in light of the anticipated military advantage gained. It has nothing to do with the relative number of people killed on both sides. The reason for this is simple: When you judge the appropriateness of an attack based on the number of people who died, you incentivize human shields, one of Hamas’s favorite tactics.Idiots like Oliver, who are impressed by body counts, are precisely why Hamas operatives continuously surround themselves with their own civilians, just to let them die. People like him are why terrorists now store weapons in schools and hospitals, and why they shoot their missiles from civilian structures in populated areas. Because the media, and shows such as Last Week Tonight, reward them for it and make it doubly hard for Israel to dismantle terrorist infrastructure.IN AN INCREDIBLE display of hubristic contempt, Oliver notes that unlike Hamas, which openly targets civilians, Israel has only aimed at military targets, but vaguely implies, with not a shred of evidence, that Israel might be lying, despite the fact that Israel has shared much of the relevant intelligence with the US. Oliver mentions the fact that, unlike any other army in history, Israel repeatedly warns people in the area in advance of their attacks and actively works to evacuate civilians. But he immediately dismisses that massive display of morality and restraint by saying that no matter the facts, it “sure seems like a war crime.” Thank God he does not actually hold any position of real power.In this one short segment, Oliver managed to become a full-fledged mouthpiece for Hamas. Aside from excusing murder and trying to muddy the waters on who does and does not target civilians, Oliver also weighed in on the Sheikh Jarrah situation, a private civil court case between two parties that did involve unpaid rent, but did not actually involve the State of Israel at all. Of course, he makes no mention of the details, including the fact that the owners of the four houses in question have acknowledged that they do in fact belong to the Jewish owners. Apparently, because the owners are Jewish, Oliver believes that they are not entitled to their rent. Set aside the facts, though; regardless of what happened, in his infantilization of Hamas, Oliver believes that confusion on this topic is enough of an excuse to make murder understandable, if not acceptable.
He also called Israel an apartheid state. Forget that Israeli Arabs enjoy positions in the highest levels of every branch of government, including the legislative branch (the Knesset), the executive branch (the Israeli cabinet) and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court), a fact that of course Oliver did not mention and likely does not know. Ignoring the fact that Israeli Arabs have full and equal rights, apartheid involves an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.For the record, Israel has repeatedly, more than 30 times, offered plans for peace and division of the land. Some of them, including the Clinton Peace Parameters, were even supported by much of the Arab world. Again, for Oliver’s edification, Israel (legitimately) gained a total of 26,178 square miles of territory in 1967. To date, it has ceded sovereignty some 23,871 square miles or 87% of that territory. At various times in recent history (including deals proposed in 2000, 2008 and 2014), Israel has offered up to 99.3% of the remaining disputed territory in exchange for peace. Each time the Palestinians refused. There cannot be apartheid when one side keeps trying to offer plans for peace.In a mere five minutes, Oliver spread slander about Israeli policy and history, justified Hamas’s use of violence, dismissed the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians as unimportant to the conversation, and discounted the fact that Israel works hard to prevent civilian casualties while the other side works hard to inflict them.If Oliver really cared about innocent Gazans he would work to hold Hamas accountable for their failed leadership and murderous schemes. In this case Simple John is simply wrong.The writer is an international lawyer and the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.