'Language calisthenics': Jon Stewart slams Israel's 'de-escalation through escalation'
Comedian Jon Stewart took to "The Daily Show" on Monday to criticize Israel's strategy of "de-escalation through escalation," slamming the phrase as "cognitive dissonance" and "language calisthenics."
Stewart opened his show by criticizing President Joe Biden over the United States' recent insistence that its working tireless toward a ceasefire. He played a montage of Biden repeating his insistence that his administration was working tirelessly toward a ceasefire with Israel and Palestine.
"We're close. We're close," says Biden in various clips.
Stewart points out that in one of the clips, Biden is eating ice cream out of a cone. Stewart grabs a cone of his own — then promptly spits it out as he plays a news clip announcing Israel launched an all-out assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"Wait! We've been working tirelessly towards a ceasefire in Gaza and they're in f---ing Lebanon?" an incredulous Stewart asks.
When he plays a clip of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing Lebanon of "wanton rocketing," Stewart hit back.
"What kind of rocketing are you doing in Gaza, if not wanton?" questioned Stewart, to a smattering of applause.
Stewart then turned his focus on Israel's exploding pager attack.
ALSO READ: Inside Trump and Johnson's shocking new bid to suppress women's votes
"Exploding pagers. Ah. Lebanon expecting an attack from the South. Instead, they attacked from the 1980s," he jabbed.
Stewart brought out a pager to explain to viewers under age 45 how the device functions.
"There was a time when we didn't have cellphones, but you still wanted to buy drugs," said Stewart.
Stewart then joked that Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, will use the porn site Nude Africa to conduct its communications in secret. The joke came at the expense of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who was linked to the site in a CNN report that surfaced comments he is accused of making defending slavery and proclaiming himself a "Black Nazi."
Stewart later scorched the "full cognitive dissonance and language calisthenics that have to be deployed to describe the Middle East."
"I give you the golden soundbite, brought down from Sinai to explain how f---ing convoluted this has to be."
The show then plays a clip of Barak Ravid, politics and foreign policy reporter at Axios, telling CNN that, "what the Israeli government is saying — and the Biden administration is, in many ways, subscribed to this idea, is de-escalation through escalation."
Stewart harshly pushed back on the clip.
"Or as that is sometimes called, war!" he yells. "That is war!"
Stewart then hammered the U.S. for having "no idea" when and where its bombs — which he jokingly re-named, "escalators" — will be detonated.
Watch the clip below or at this link.