What Trevor Noah gets wrong about Palestine

The US comedy show host’s framing of Israel’s latest bombing campaign on Gaza was more than a little problematic.

During the recent 11-day cruel Israeli bombardment of Gaza in the Middle East, South Africa-born US comedy show host, Trevor Noah, drew fire from pro-Israel groups for highlighting the power imbalance between the Israeli army and Palestinian resistance groups, and suggesting that this imposed a moral obligation on the former to moderate its response. Comparing it with a fight between his teenage self and his then baby brother, Noah argues that regardless of the justifications offered by either side, the stronger party bears a higher responsibility. In essence, killing 248 Palestinians, more than a quarter of them children, injuring thousands more, flattening the homes of nearly 100,000 people and destroying Gaza’s health infrastructure during a pandemic in order to stop rockets that killed a total of 12 Israelis, including two children, seems like a massive overreaction. Predictably, supporters of Israel have focused on what they spun as a suggestion that Israel should refrain from deploying its full capabilities to prevent an attack on its population, many arguing that the issue was less about a disproportionate response and more about a necessary one.