On Tuesday night’s Hannity show on the Fox News Channel, talk-radio star and author Mark Levin attacked Jon Stewart for trashing Israel -- and then mocking critics by insisting he should be allowed to have nuance. “Just merely mentioning Israel or questioning in any way the effectiveness or humanity of Israel's policies is not the same thing as being pro-Hamas,” he said. When he trashes Israel, he's "made it okay to care about Palestinian suffering."
Hannity said Stewart is rarely attacked in the media. Levin said “he’s held up as a brilliant comedian,” but “I don't think he's funny. I don't think he's smart.” He made the obvious point that if Hamas had Israel's nuclear arsenal, Israel would no longer exist. (Video, transcript below)
MARK LEVIN: I'll tell you why. Because he's held up as this really smart guy, this -- he's held up as a brilliant comedian. He's not a smart guy. He's got 10 writers. He's a clown.
SEAN HANNITY: Ten? He's got 30!
LEVIN: And that particular segment -- I don't watch him, but I watched this -- well, I watched this segment on the Internet, and the disinformation and the propaganda he was putting out in the form of jokes was outrageous! And I would just tell Mr. Stewart that it really doesn't take a lot of courage to criticize Israel and trash Israel. It's done all the time. It's done by Israel's, quote, unquote, "neighbors." It's done in Europe right now, where Jewish stores and so forth are being burned down and there's riots. It's done in Boston and New York, where the police have had to come out and protect pro-Israeli rallies and so forth. So you're not really a tough guy. You're not really cutting-edge.
And the fact of the matter, Mr. Stewart, is that if Hamas had the weaponry that Israel had, nuclear weapons and other weapons, Israel would cease to exist. And if Israel wanted to take out whole communities in Gaza, or the whole Gaza strip, they could do so in about 30 minutes. And it doesn't.
This is the only country I know of that has thousands of missiles rained in on it, missiles coming from Iran through Hezbollah to Hamas, a country that agrees to a ceasefire that was negotiated by Egypt and the Arab League, and still has to tolerate these attacks. And even today, Sean, a missile came very close to Ben Gurion airport. They shut down the airport now to international traffic. The United States did. So now Israel is isolated in that way.
Can you imagine? The Gaza strip is relatively distant from Ben Gurion airport. The West Bank is very close. So what this demonstrates is Israel must never demilitarize or give up the West Bank because it will lose all control over its security!
So I thought Jon Stewart -- I don't think he's funny. I don't think he's smart. How can he be, 10, 30 writers? But I thought this particular segment was really putrid.
