‘I Feel Like A Crazy Person’: Jon Stewart on the ‘Inhumane and Horrific’ Events in Gaza

Jon Stewart said that the events currently taking place in Gaza are “self-evidently inhumane and horrific,” criticizing the Israeli government for its actions in the war during his show on Monday.

Stewart was interviewing progressive journalist Peter Beinart on an episode of The Daily Show about the war in Gaza and Beinart’s experience criticizing Israel’s actions as a Jewish person.

Stewart, who is also Jewish, shared his own thoughts on the matter.

“This has rocked my– I feel like a crazy person,” said Stewart. “I feel like I’m watching something that is so self-evidently inhumane and horrific and to be told that I have to shut up because I risk the Jewish state by speaking out? I would say the opposite.”

An estimated 60,000 people have died in the war since the October 7th attack in 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Stewart continued, telling Beinart that he believes “they’re putting the likelihood of a surviving Jewish state much more at risk with this type of action.”

“I think they’re the ones that are being anti-Semitic,” he said. “If you want to define– Netanyahu’s definition of anti-Semitism would [mean he’d] probably have to bomb himself.”

Stewart’s previous coverage of the conflict has come in a more comedic form, including criticizing the Israeli government’s pager attack last year.

In February of 2024, he criticized CNN for characterizing the alleged shooting of civilians at an aid site by Israeli soldiers as a “chaotic incident.”

“Umm…note to CNN…a ‘chaotic incident’ is college kids storming a basketball court, not a massacre at a food line…” the comedian wrote on X.

Watch the clip above.