It’s a good thing Jon Stewart agreed to return to The Daily Show. In the most recent episode, the temporary host decided to take it upon himself to solve the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, which culminated in the current Israel-Hamas war.
The late-night host recapped the war, explaining the recent reactions on all sides. He criticized the Biden administration for telling Israel to be more careful. “‘Could you please be more careful when you’re bombing?’ It’s good advice,” Stewart quipped. “But couldn’t the United States have told Israel that when we gave them all the bombs? They’re our bombs! It’s like your coke dealer coming in with an eight ball and going, ‘Don’t stay up all night.’”
He also criticized the United Nations for not doing more. “What is the United Nations even?” Stewart asked. “What, are you just a support system for a diverse and pleasing food court?”
To help, Stewart presented three “solutions for peace” to create a “safe and free Israel and safe and free Palestine.” “I think we have to get real here: the status quo cycle of provocation and retribution is predicated on some idea that one of these groups is going to go away — and they are not,” Stewart explained. He added, “So Israel, the United States, the United Nations, the Arab nations — no one seems to be incentivized to stop the suffering of the innocent people in this region.”
First, he looked at a small camp in Maine where Israeli and Palestine kids play together. Steward admitted that this solution “hasn’t been scaled up yet, and may take longer than we have — unless we bring the whole fucking region to Maine.”
Or, the host continued, maybe we could just ask God. “He started this whole mess,” Stewart said. “He can tells us who is right. Is it the Jews? Is it the Muslims? Is it the Zoroastrians? If it’s the Scientologists, a lot of us are going to have egg on our faces.”
His third idea was actually serious. “Heaven forbid, I actually think this last one could work,” Stewart said. “Starting now, no preconditions, no earned trust, no partners for peace: Israel stops bombing, Hamas releases the hostages. The Arab countries who claim Palestine as their top priority come in and form a demilitarized zone between Israel and a free Palestinian state. The Saudis Egypt, UAE, Qatar, Jordan — they all form like a NATO arrangement guaranteeing security for both sides. Obviously, they won’t call it NATO. It’s the Middle East Treaty Organization — METO.”
He added, “Obviously, I have not worked out the exact verbiage, but anything is better than the cluster cycle we have now. Because honestly, what is the alternative?”
Stewart then hosted two Middle East experts, The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain and The Atlantic‘s Yair Rosenberg, to discuss what’s going on and how it could be solved.
Stewart is back as one of the rotating hosts of The Daily Show on Monday nights through the 2024 presidential election. He was criticized after his first episode for suggesting there are issues on both sides of aisle. Last week, Stewart took aim at Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin, who he called “suck a dick,” adding of Carlson’s efforts, “This has been an incredible primer into the delicate dance of speaking ‘of course’ to power.”