With only one week to go until the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart thought it would be a good idea to welcome far-left author Ta-Nehisi Coates to Monday’s taping of The Daily Show to promote his new book and compare the besieged nation to slave owners and traders.
Stewart set the table, “There's a certain aspect of your career that has really tried to reconcile, not with things in the present, but their vestiges, the structures, racial politics, slavery, economic injustices, where it may not be the active virus, but it is these vestiges of it that still, you know, leach into the groundwater and make it toxic and polluted. This book felt a little different in that you were also going into the present. And bringing those lessons with you. And I thought that was a really moving part of the book.”
Coates then claimed the part of today’s world where one can see the horrors of the past is Israel, “Yeah, that’s true, and I guess I'm going to be they want to broach this, but it was obviously most active when I was in Jerusalem, when I was in Haifa, when I was on the West Bank. I mean, it was the history, but the history was active and that was tough, that was tough. I'm used to, you know, going to some, you know, slave plantation and saying, ‘Yeah, this did happen 150 years ago, but here's how you feel the impact,” and you’re like ‘no, it is right now, it is right now.’”
Instead of pushing back, Stewart recalled how Coates also traveled to Senegal, where there is a memorial to victims of the slave trade, “And it comes on the heels—so, in the book you’re also, you take a trip to Senegal. Is that in relation to your trip to Israel and the West Bank, in that same time frame or was that split up?”
After recalling the timeline of his trips, Coates doubled down on his comparison, “They are in conversation with each other. I can't say I intended that.”
Stewart agreed, “Right. That’s why I was curious, because there is a music there between the two.”
Coates tripled down:
Yeah, yeah. No, there is. I mean, Senegal is very much about me, frankly, investigating the very stories that gave me my name, you know, and gave me my identity. And trying to work through that and frankly, not completely working through it by the time I got over there, and then, you know, I take this trip with this wonderful organization, the Palestine Festival of Literature, and I get over there, you know, for five days, and I spent another five days with these ex-IDF guys, you know, who, I mean, had their own political evolution.
And this is very weird to say, but as much sympathy as I had for the Palestinians, watching Zionism in the world, even feeling like, this is wrong, what I'm saying is wrong, I was like, ‘My god, I know how you get here. I know how it happens’ and I don't mean I approve of it. But I see, I see how it happens. I totally see how it happens.
Zionism is simply the belief Israel should exist, so if Coates feels that “is wrong,” then he has much more to answer for. When Hamas attacked Israel nearly one year ago, they disproportionately murdered and kidnapped peace activists on the left side of the political spectrum because for Israel’s enemies there is no distinction. None of this or any of the other relevant historical events were discussed in this segment except to say that Israel is trying to compensate for feeling humiliated by the Holocaust.
Here is a transcript for the September 30 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
9/30/2024
11:27 PM ET
JON STEWART: I want to ask you, there's a certain aspect of your career that has really tried to reconcile, not with things in the present, but their vestiges, the structures, racial politics, slavery, economic injustices, where it may not be the active virus, but it is these vestiges of it that still, you know, leach into the groundwater and make it toxic and polluted. This book felt a little different in that you were also going into the present.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. Yeah.
STEWART: And bringing those lessons with you. And I thought that was a really moving part of the book.
COATES: Yeah, that’s true, and I guess I'm going to be they want to broach this, but it was obviously most active when I was in Jerusalem, when I was in Haifa, when I was on the West Bank.
STEWART: Right.
COATES: I mean, it was the history, but the history was active—
STEWART: Right.
COATES: -- and that was tough, that was tough. I'm used to, you know, going to some, you know, slave plantation and saying, “Yeah, this did happen 150 years ago, but here's how you feel the impact,” and you’re like “no, it is right now, it is right now.”
STEWART: Right.
COATES: It’s right now.
STEWART: And it comes on the heels—so, in the book you’re also, you take a trip to Senegal.
COATES: I do, yes.
STEWART: Is that in relation to your trip to Israel and the West Bank, in that same time frame or was that split up?
COATES: It was about, so, I think I went in, this would have been September of 2022 to Senegal, then, May of '23 to the West Bank and to Israel and weirdly enough, they are in conversation with each other. I can't say I intended that.
STEWART: Right. That’s why I was curious, because there is a music there between the two.
COATES: Yeah, yeah. No, there is. I mean, Senegal is very much about me, frankly, investigating the very stories that gave me my name, you know, and gave me my identity. And trying to work through that and frankly, not completely working through it by the time I got over there, and then, you know, I take this trip with this wonderful organization, the Palestine Festival of Literature, and I get over there, you know, for five days, and I spent another five days with these ex-IDF guys, you know, who, I mean, had their own political evolution.
And this is very weird to say, but as much sympathy as I had for the Palestinians, watching Zionism in the world, even feeling like, this is wrong, what I'm saying is wrong, I was like, "My god, I know how you get here. I know how it happens" and I don't mean I approve of it. But I see, I see how it happens. I totally see how it happens.
