Jerry Seinfeld likened the Free Palestine movement to the Ku Klux Klan — even saying those who use the phrase “Free Palestine” are worse than the white supremacist group — at a student event at Duke University meant to honor hostages who are being held in Gaza.

Seinfeld spoke at the school in Durham, North Carolina, to introduce a former Israeli hostage, Omer Shem Tov, when he made the remarks, according to the university’s student newspaper, The Duke Chronicle. He reportedly started by saying, in reference to the Free Palestine activist movement, “Just say you don’t like Jews.”

“By saying ‘Free Palestine,’ you’re not admitting what you really think. So it’s actually — compared to the Ku Klux Klan, I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here, because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ Okay, that’s honest,'" the Chronicle reported Seinfeld said.

  • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    Yes, indirectly. Whenever any blame is put on Hamas it gets a barrage of deflection attacking Israeli actions. Some people even outright support Hamas and cite Israel’s actions.

    • Whostosay@sh.itjust.works
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      16 hours ago

      The bottom line is that there is an objectively worse party between the two. They are in the middle of carrying out an active genocide. They’re both terrible organizations, we all understand that. One is systematically starving, imprisoning innocent people on an extremely large scale, including children.

      We have nearly every “developed” nation supporting that. People are justifiably vilifying Israel for painfully obvious reasons.

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Worse right now yes. But Hamas is purposefully keeping it going too, it’s a pretty close 2nd. Hamas ramped this thing up in the Oct attacks for nothing but for getting social media hits of Gaza civilians getting smoked by Israel’s garunteed response. Hamas purposely put Israel in a position where they’d need to respond brutally. It doesn’t excuse Israel’s actions now of course, but I think Hamas should share more of the responsibility than what posters here seem to realize.

            • Whostosay@sh.itjust.works
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              16 hours ago

              Even if it weren’t, I am not saying that, and arguing what I’m saying as if I did or should be associated with anyone that did is not helping you or anyone.

              • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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                15 hours ago

                Look back at this thread. I was responding with a clarification of how Hamas could meaningfully end the war. And you responded with an attack on Israel’s actions. You were not wrong, but it was a deflection of the cretic on Hamas. That is a form of supporting Hamas. I understand it was a knee jerk reaction to what you perceived as the same kind of deflection of a criticism of Israeli actions. But I definitively condemned Israels actions while also pointing out that Hamas is also keeping this going.

                • kreskin@lemmy.world
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                  10 hours ago

                  What other people are doing does not give zionists a reason to commit genocide of civilians. There is no universe where thats allowed. zionists dont get a “genocide is OK here” card based on their accusations of others.

                • Whostosay@sh.itjust.works
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                  15 hours ago

                  Israel has done nothing to deescalate this war, and they have also proven that their word cannot be trusted. Hamas should absolutely release every hostage, but that will not end this war.

                  I probably should have started with that.

                  • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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                    15 hours ago

                    Hamas surrendering probably wouldn’t immediately stop this war now as Isreal is so far down the psycho rabbit hole. But I would think (hope) that it would trigger a lot more pressure from within the U.S. to stop it.