Jon Stewart. Photo: Wikipedia

Jon “Stewart” Leibowitz (yes, the one from the fake news show) recently gave an interview to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The reporter came to do a puff piece about his new movie, not to ask hard questions (do that and you won’t be asking any other client of this PR firm any questions ever again). So “Stewart” was at liberty to settle his scores with the Israelis and others who didn’t like his warm embrace of Hamas propaganda during the summer’s Gaza war.

“You won’t yell at me?” he asked the reporter, before proceeding with fake humility: “I don’t live in the Middle East and I’m sure things look different from there, but I love Israel and want it to be safe and democratic. I just think that the current path is wrong.” “Stewart” told the reporter that he was surprised by the strength of the negative response to his views, and after offering a vaguely racist comment, he demanded his critics repent.

“We may not agree on the way [to handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], but to compare me to the Jews who helped Nazis? More than it saddens me, it raises worries about the place Israel is in and the place it is going to. Since when does disagreement with the policies of the Israeli government makes you a lesser Jew? It is very rude for other Jews to say things like that.” “Stewart” then explained that “the policy of the Israeli government and the leeway that United States allows it to conduct this policy are not good for the Israel that I love.” Toward the end of the interview, he proudly promised to keep attacking Israel on air.

Here you have the American Jewish Liberal mindset in a nutshell. “Stewart,” who for some unfathomable reason commands the attention of millions of Americans, presents himself as a victim of those who want him to be loyal to the Israeli government – in essence, to betray his conscience and his country. If you happen to defend Israel’s actions, it’s you, not “Stewart,” who must be suspect.

In truth, of course, “Stewart” was not criticized for his disloyalty to “the Tribe.” Many Israelis and their supporters don’t consider him in any way a “Jewish” figure to begin with. “Stewart” hotly denies being a “self-hating Jew” – and it’s easy to believe him – to hate, one has to have a deep feeling for something. For “Stewart,” his Jewishness is mostly a source of light embarrassment.

As for Israel and Gaza, “Stewart”‘s position has crystallized long ago, and it is a one of studied moral equivalence. For each Palestinian atrocity (upon which “Stewart” usually glosses over anyway) he finds a reason to apportion equal blame to Israel, and since Israel is stronger and enjoys this “great American leeway,” Israel usually comes out as the guilty party.

“Stewart”‘s moral failure to condemn Hamas and defend Israel has nothing to do with his fickle Judaism and everything to do with his liberal dogma, which simply cannot stomach the fact that people in the Middle East can be guilty of anything. It is always the white man’s fault, and in this case – Israel’s. During one of his previous interviews, “Stewart” had no problem with his host Jonathan Dekel, another specimen of the same sort, denigrating Israeli democracy. Stewart never uttered a bad word about the Palestinians.

“Stewart” is correct on one thing. The Jews who “helped” the Nazis did so because, in their mortal peril, they’d abandoned their moral principles for the glimmer of hope of personal survival. “Stewart” – a pampered, self-centered, deluded king of his world – is nothing like those wretches in his attacks on the Jewish state and its defenders.

He is incomparably worse.