Jon Stewart proposes NATO-style solution to solve Gaza conflict

TV host slammed international community’s response to Israel-Hamas conflict

Jon Stewart proposed a NATO-style solution to the war in Gaza as he slammed the international community for its weak response to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

On Monday night’s The Daily Show, Stewart recapped the war, which began on 7 October, when Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking hundreds hostage across the Gaza border.

Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes on the enclave have killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza,

Stewart argued that the international response to the conflict has not gone far enough, criticising Joe Biden for telling Israel to “be more careful” during its attacks.

“‘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 to stop the killing. “What is the United Nations even?” Stewart asked. “What, are you just a support system for a diverse and pleasing food court?”

The comedian went on to offer some solutions to the crisis between Israel and Palestine, joking that a scaled-up version of a 2014 event in Maine that involved 95 Israeli and Palestinian teens trading “rockets for rackets” could work to create a “safe and free Israel and safe and free Palestine.”

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart has slammed the international community for its weak response to the Israel-Palestine conflict. (The Daily Show)

Or, the host continued, maybe we could just ask God. “It’s his house, he’s the one who started all this. Just ask God, he can tell us who is right,” he continued. “Is it the Jews? Is it the Muslims? Is it the Zoroastrians?”

Stewart then put forward some more serious proposals for ending the conflict.

“Starting now, no preconditions, no earned trust, no partners for peace. Israel stops bombing. Hamas releases the hostages. The Arab countries who claim Palestine is their top priority come in and form a demilitarized zone between Israel and a free Palestinian state,” he said.

“The Saudis Egypt, UAE, Qatar, Jordan — they all form like a NATO arrangement guaranteeing security for both sides,” Mr Stewart added.

He dubbed the proposed organization “METO” — an acronym for the Middle East Treaty Organization.

“Obviously I’ve not worked out the exact verbiage, but anything is better than the clusterf**k cycle we have now,” he said.

Stewart is not the first person to suggest a NATO-style organization in the Middle East, with Donald Trump suggesting the idea in 2018 as part of a plan to counter Iran’s expansion in the region. However, the idea has so far failed to gain traction due to deeply conflicting security goals amongst the Arab nations.

Nonetheless, during his monologue, Mr Stewart suggested that to bring peace to the Middle East, it is incumbent upon all of the international community to take action.

“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,” he said.

“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.

“If we want a safe and free Israel and a safe and free Palestine, we have to recognize that reality. And I know that there is a twisted and much-contested history in the region that has brought us to this point. But we are at this point,” he added.