Recently, I made a huge mistake. I watched HBO’s Last Week Tonight. When the episode about Israel popped up on my YouTube feed, I clicked, against my better judgment. What followed was 20 minutes of misrepresentation posing as comedic journalism. The host, John Oliver, displayed either a startling ignorance or, worse, a willful disregard for context.
The segment solely focused on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I did minimal checking on the topic, but I’m confident that Bibi is one of the only leaders outside of America to whom Oliver has dedicated an entire show. The exposé portrays the prime minister as evil while ignoring relevant details.
Oliver glibly makes reference to all of the Arab nations Israel has “attacked” in the last two years. From Lebanon to Iran to Yemen, according to Oliver, these actions display Bibi’s insatiable warmongering. What he fails to mention is how every one of these nations struck Israel first and how Israel’s actions have reshaped the Middle East, curbing Iran’s proxies and weakening much of the West-hating extremism in the region.
The most egregious section of the episode deals with the Oslo Accords. Bibi is shown protesting in front of a makeshift coffin that says, “Rabin is killing Zionism.” Oliver offers this as proof that the prime minister had Yitzhak Rabin assassinated. The host never mentions that the Oslo process unleashed the Second Intifada, resulting in the murder of thousands of Israelis. In Oliver’s narrative, Rabin was a man of peace, and the war-crazed Netanyahu had him extinguished.
The real-world impact
Portrayals of Israel such as these have real-world consequences, the most recent of which we saw on Yom Kippur.
For the last two years, much of the media has done little beyond demonizing the Jewish state. Every defensive move has been described using terms such as “genocide” and “starvation.” The IDF has been likened to the Nazis, who once carried out such atrocities on our people.
Unfortunately, the synagogue attack outside of Manchester was expected. The UK chief rabbi himself described it as such. The bubbling antisemitism across Europe has been ignored for long enough. The attacks on the Jewish population throughout Europe – and even in places like Australia – demand forceful, zero-tolerance responses to such hate crimes.
However, the problem spreading around the world is not only due to false media coverage. It stems from Israel’s response to terrorism over the last 70-plus years. Israel’s hands were not first tied by the Biden administration. We have long been prevented from responding in a way that truly deters.
If, upon the first bus bombing that occurred in Israel, the IDF could have responded forcefully, it would have sent a message that this behavior doesn’t pay. But the opposite has occurred. Slaying Jews has been rewarded – from the Palestinian Authority subsidizing the families of terrorists to the world excusing murder as resistance. So the question was never if terrorism was going to spread beyond Israel but when.
The attack on Yom Kippur should surprise no one, but it should terrify us all. These extremists will not stop with the Jewish community. If left unchecked, this evil will spread to every corner of the earth. The only question that remains is whether figures like John Oliver – and the audiences who cheer him on – will still champion this hatred when those same forces come for them.
The writer is a rabbi, wedding officiant, and mohel who performs britot (ritual circumcisions) and conversions in Israel and worldwide. Based in Efrat, Israel, he is the founder of Magen HaBrit, an organization protecting the practice of brit milah and the children who undergo it.