John Oliver Addresses Israel-Hamas Warfare in Critical Second at Begin of ‘Final Week Tonight’: “The Immense Struggling Has Been Sickening to Watch”

John Oliver took a second to share his ideas on the Israel-Hamas struggle firstly of HBO‘s Final Week Tonight. In a uncommon transfer, the host addressed the viewers earlier than the title sequence aired on Sunday’s present.

“With out all of the music and the lights and — not less than theoretically — the laughter, I wished to briefly discuss to you about what has clearly been a horrible week,” he started. “The immense struggling in Israel and Gaza has been sickening to look at, and we’re not gonna be protecting it in the primary physique of our present tonight for a few causes. First, it’s horrific. I don’t actually need to inform jokes about carnage proper now, and I’m fairly positive that you just don’t need to hear them. And second, we’re taping this on Saturday afternoon and also you’ll be watching it Sunday night time or Monday morning by an unlawful VPN. I do know who I’m speaking to,” he quipped.

He went on to notice that as a result of timing of the taping, “so much may change” between then and the episode’s premiere.

“However I do have a couple of broad ideas that I believe will nonetheless apply, and so they need to do with sorrow, worry and anger,” he stated. “Now, sorrow is the primary and most overwhelming feeling, the photographs that we’ve seen this week from final Saturday onwards have been completely heartbreaking — 1000’s now useless in Israel and Gaza. It might be devastating, not simply to these within the area, however to diaspora communities the world over. No matter ideas you’ve concerning the historical past of this area or the present state of affairs … it needs to be unattainable to see grieving households and never be moved. So there’s been sorrow this week, a variety of it and likewise worry — comprehensible worry of additional assaults in Israel and for these taken hostage and worry of what’s to return in Gaza, as Israel’s leaders appear intent on embarking on a relentless bombing marketing campaign, mass displacement and a possible floor invasion.”

Once more noting the time hole between when the present is recorded and when it airs, he continued: “I don’t know the place issues stand in Gaza as you watch this proper now. However all indicators appear to be pointed towards a humanitarian disaster. Israeli officers introduced plans to chop off meals, water, gas and energy. Hospitals are working on mills. This has all of the appearances of collective punishment, which is a struggle crime. And I believe many Israelis and Palestinians are feeling justifiable anger proper now, not simply at Hamas, whose completely heinous terrorist acts set this week’s occasions in movement, but additionally on the zealots and extremists throughout the board who constantly thwarted makes an attempt at peace through the years. Israelis and Palestinians have been let down by their management time and time once more. And I don’t have quite a lot of religion within the leaders at present in cost to steer us towards peace.”

Oliver stated he nonetheless has some hope given the variety of abnormal residents, each Israeli and Palestinian, who’ve “referred to as for restraint this week and never revenge.”

He performed an interview between CNN’s Jake Tapper and Noi Katzman, whose brother Chaim was killed final weekend within the Hamas terrorist assaults. Katzman ended his interview by saying he didn’t need his brother’s demise to “be used to kill harmless individuals. … I don’t need something to occur to individuals in Gaza like what occurred to my brother, and I’m positive he wouldn’t have any both. In order that’s my name to my authorities to cease killing harmless individuals. And that’s not the best way that brings us peace and safety to individuals in Israel.”

Oliver agreed.

“Folks need and are entitled to peace, and I’m not going to inform both aspect get it — definitely not on this [British] accent, which has frankly finished sufficient harm in that specific area to final a fucking lifetime,” he stated. “However simply know in the long run, all of the individuals who need to dwell in that area are going to maintain dwelling there. So peace is just not optionally available and would require some robust selections. And I can’t say the place a peace course of ends, but it surely simply has to start out with that form of capacity to acknowledge our frequent humanity.”