Trevor Noah Asks the Hard Question: What is Your Responsibility?

With fighting raging in Jerusalem Trevor Noah bravely addressed the tensions in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Look, this is a very difficult and contentious issue...so complex, Noah acknowledged, that even Jared Kushner couldn't solve it! Yet, Noah  in ten minutes did a better job of in the describing the situation than any mainstream journalist has ever been able to. He rightfully points out that depending on when you start the clock on a conflict that goes back 73 years, you can fairly blame one side or the other. (I'd also add the damn Brits! Who, really, when you think about it are responsible for many of the world's long-running conflicts...but I digress). At the end of the day, today, with a vastly superior military strength, Noah points out that Israel faces no real existential threat from the Palestinians, and that imbalance is akin to a teenage Noah fighting his annoying and pesky 5-year old cousins. Yes, the kids are trying their hardest to land a punch and will fight dirty, but Noah understands the difference between them and his responsibility not do the same. So he bluntly asks, "What responsibility does Israel have?"    

It was a pretty powerful The Daily Show segment. Raw and genuine. Watch it below (or again).

Separately, the NYT ran two op-eds today featuring the latest Mid-east conflict. One is from the paper's "conscience," Nicholas Kristof, who is critical of Hamas and of Israeli policies that led to their rise and also unconditional U.S. military aid, some $112 billion since 1946. 

The second is from Peter Beinart, who writes about the Nabka, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, generally referring to the over 700,000 Palestinians expelled during Israel’s founding. Beinart notes that it's a difficult subject for many of his fellow Jews to discuss "because [it's] inextricably bound up with Israel’s creation. Without the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, Zionist leaders would have had neither the land nor the large Jewish majority necessary to create a viable Jewish state." Today, Israeli leaders insist Palestinians give up their demands to return citing facts on the ground. Beinart find this demand rich in irony because "because no people in human history have clung as stubbornly to the dream of return as have Jews. Establishment Jewish leaders denounce the fact that Palestinians pass down their identity as refugees to their children and grandchildren. But Jews have passed down our identity as refugees for 2,000 years. In our holidays and liturgy we continually mourn our expulsion and express our yearning for return."

At the same Beinart does provides some hope of reconciliation recounting the experience of George Bisharat, a Palestinian-American law professor. After Bisharat "wrote about the house in Jerusalem that his grandfather had built and been robbed of, a former Israeli soldier who had lived in it contacted him unexpectedly. “I am sorry, I was blind. What we did was wrong, but I participated in it and I cannot deny it,” the former soldier said when they met, and then added, “I owe your family three months’ rent.” Mr. Bisharat later wrote that he was inspired to match the Israeli’s humanity."

Ultimately, our common humanity overwhelms our differences. My guess is, if Israelis and Palestinians got to know each other better they would realize they have more in common than difference.