Jerry Seinfeld’s week of difficult appearances continues, this time in Virginia.

As soon as Seinfeld took the stage for a stand-up comedy set at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk on Saturday night, a man in the audience jumped up and yelled, “Free Gaza,” TMZ reported. The audience immediately began booing the heckler and chanting “Jerry! Jerry!” as another bystander wrestled the protester into a headlock.

Security escorted the man out of the building, but the show was interrupted by other protesters eight times throughout its 90-minute run.

The controversy around Seinfeld’s views stems from his vocal support of Israel — which he visited following the Oct. 7 attacks — and his wife’s $5,000 donation to a GoFundMe for pro-Israel counterprotesters at UCLA after a late April protest turned violent.

Seinfeld didn’t seem bothered by the interruptions, telling the crowd not to boo the man because he had a right to protest.

“This is exciting. I like this,” the comic said as the original protester was escorted out of the venue. “I like a little Jew hate to spice up the show.”

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      No no, the party line is “fuck yes, blow up more Hamas”….

      You’re not supposed to admit they’re children…

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The new party line, which I’ve encountered several times in the past few days, is “it’s Hamas’ fault that Israel kills children.”

        • WamGams
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          6 months ago

          Do you know how many people have personally told me it’s Israel’s fault that Hamas kills Jews?

          Both sides are saying ridiculous shit out of emotion. Let’s not pretend it is just Israel supporters.

            • WamGams
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              6 months ago

              Both sides of the equation need to be pushed back against.

                • WamGams
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                  6 months ago

                  You scrolled past somebody stating in this very thread that they don’t recognize the right of Israel to exist.

                  You could have spent a single minute of your day pushing against the ridiculousness of that statement. Instead, you scrolled down and decided to push back on something less ridiculous.

                  They both deserved push back, but you only chose to push back against the side you aren’t on.

                  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                    6 months ago

                    There’s nothing remotely ridiculous about saying that an apartheid ethnostate does not have a right to exist.

                  • ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    6 months ago

                    Frankly, no nation has an inherent right to exist, and that includes Israel. A nation is only legitimate as long as it looks after the interests and liberties of its people. All its people. At the end of the day, I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut if Israel exists, Palestine exists, or some combination of the two, or neither. What I care about is that the people who live there have long, happy, free, and peaceful lives, and right now Israel seems to be the biggest obstacle to that, what with the genocide and all.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            If you cannot see the difference between: an ethno-nationalist, settler colonialist state with weapons and support from the most powerful military on the planet keeping the people whose land you’re literally stealing in an open-air prison; and, the people that they’ve been oppressing for 80+ years who have turned to violence after literally everything else has failed for nearly a century, so maybe they don’t get murdered by IDF soldiers, and maybe one day they can just live in fucking peace and not have to worry about a bunch of nationalist Jews from New Jersey storming onto their property in the middle of night with AR-15s and forcing them out of the home their family lived in for generations…

            If you think these two groups are the same, and this is some “both sides” shit, then you either need a history lesson, or you already know I’m right and you’re full of shit.

            You’re “both sides”-ing a literal fucking genocide. Real bad look.

            • WamGams
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              6 months ago

              I’m not in support of Israel on this matter.

              • prole@sh.itjust.works
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                6 months ago

                Ok so why did you feel the need to talk about how many people have personally told you it’s Israel’s fault Hamas attacked as if it isn’t true (and no Israel ≠ the Israeli people just like Hamas ≠ the Palestinian people)?

                And buddy, your username is public. It’s not hard to remember it when you say some of the vile shit you’ve said. Hey even the app I use has a feature to highlight users with notes… So please don’t lie to me about your agenda thanks.

                • WamGams
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                  6 months ago

                  I have you in my notes too. It just says “unhinged.”

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If Palestine became its own state tomorrow, with Gaza and the West Bank, and Israel did everything right as of tomorrow (a big ask, I know), do you think Israel would continue to suffer attacks? For how long? Do you think continued violence is justified because of what Israel is doing now?

        I’m interested in a path to peace, but I don’t see one. I don’t like “free Gaza” because what does that even look like?

        If it’s just short for “stop genocide” then fine. But I don’t see what it can mean past that.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          just to clarify, you realize that there was a path to peace, and then Likud/Netanyahu decided to actively help fund and support Hamas to undermine Palestine as a stable state. Specifically to avoid having to give Palestinians statehood (and a democratic vote)?

          that to this day, there are significant numbers of Palestinians who do not have a voice in any form of government.

          I don’t know what the path to peace now looks like - the conflict has gone longer than I’ve been alive. They came close and the powers that were decided they didn’t like that, so they fucked the entire region over. the Hamas attack on oct7- while definitely to be blamed on Hamas- is a direct result of those actions.

          I don’t know where we’d be had they not taken action to support Hamas over other groups… but it’s very clear both the Israeli far right and Hamas are willing participants in a war that’s mostly just killing civilians. So, the first step absolutely has to be to stop the violence and restore sanity, and then we can get back to working to a more lasting peace.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
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            just to clarify, you realize that there was a path to peace

            Awhile ago, shaky, but maybe.

            then Likud/Netanyahu decided to actively help fund and support Hamas to undermine Palestine as a stable state.

            Absolutely. Also to scare their own citizens into supporting them. He didn’t intentionally let Oct 7th happen, but Hamas isn’t a pet to be toyed with, either. He used them as a boogyman, empowered them, and then was surprised when they did a small part of what they had threatened to do.

            • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              You understand that but say “Israel will continue to get attacked” like that justifies not letting them be free? And Israel is absolutely free to defend itself, but killing more more journalists in a few months than have ever been killed in any single war, evacuating people then bombing the refugee camps, targeting aid workers, and shooting unarmed civilians in the west bank (where there is no combat) is not self defense.

              People shit on America for Iraq and Afghanistan, and yeah, those were pretty fucking bad. Somehow Israel is managing to be worse. Objectively, provably worse.

              The Washington Post, citing Marc Garlasco, a military adviser at the Dutch organization PAX for Peace, reported that Israel is “dropping in less than a week what the US was dropping in Afghanistan in a year, in a much smaller, much more densely populated area, where mistakes are going to be magnified.”

              • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                People shit on America for Iraq and Afghanistan, and yeah, those were pretty fucking bad. Somehow Israel is managing to be worse. Objectively, provably worse.

                At least 35,647 people have been killed and 79,852 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attack is 1,139 with dozens still held captive. Source

                460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence.

                You’re saying 36 thousand deaths is worth than 460 thousand deaths. I’m not saying what Israel is doing is justified, but it’s a hell of a lot more justified than whatever the fuck we were doing in Iraq.

            • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              You sure they didn’t let it happen?

              The IDF is one of the most capable and well-equipped militaries in the world.

              They had reports of training activity. They had been warned by several parties, but the attack still managed.

        • Count042@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          You don’t see a path to peace because you believe most Gazan’s want to kill all Israelis.

          A claim, I might add, that you state as fact and then post links to the supposed source that doesn’t say anything like that at all.

          You’re either so incredibly biased you don’t see your own bias while congratulating yourself on how open minded you are, or you’re intentionally trying to lie in a subtle manner to try and sway others.

          Given the maliciousness of posting a fake source to claim a non-existent genocidal desire OF A POPULATION CURRENTLY BEING GENOCIDED, I’m guessing the later.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            A claim, I might add, that you state as fact and then post links to the supposed source that doesn’t say anything like that at all.

            You’re right. Maybe 72% of Palestinians are misunderstood. Maybe they only wanted to drag specific Israelis out of their safehouses in the only neighborhoods they could reach and beat and murder and kidnap those people, but not the rest. They really were going to stop right when the IDF happened to show up. What a coincidence.

            • Count042@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              A besieged populations support of a military operation that had a lower percentage of civilian deaths by at least two, possibly three, orders of magnitude compared to Israels actions over the last 7 months is a far cry from asking people if they support the slaughter of every Israeli, and you know it.

              By that same level of evidence and logic, a higher percentage of Israelis want the entire slaughter of the Gazan population.

              I will also point out that there is a secondary form of justice for Palestinian people in the west bank and East Jerusalem then there are for the settlers. Palestinian children frequently get arrested (read kidnapped) and sentenced by a military tribunal with no evidence. Whereas the settlers use the IDF as armed guards while they try to ethnically cleanse villages from the west bank, and if they do get arrested they have a jury trial with standards of evidence. To me, those 15,000 Palestinian prisoners are not prisoners, but hostages.

              Prisoner vs hostage
              Arrest vs kidnap
              Support for a military action vs desire for genocide

              It’s all in the words you use, isn’t it?

              Thanks for revealing yourself as a subtle genocide defender. I really was curious which one you were.

              • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                I really was curious which one you were.

                I’m glad you were able to make the situation so black and white.

                • Count042@lemmy.ml
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                  6 months ago

                  It really is.

                  Any country that intentionally withholds food, medicine, and potable water from a population it considers undesirable is a government intentionally committing genocide.

                  Is genocide ever justified is a yes or no question. Only one answer makes you a monster

                  You lied about the results of a survey to imply something the survey didn’t ask in order to slander a population being genocided.

                  Furthermore, you defended that lie with a self-righteous tirade rather than acknowledging your lie.

                  It’s rather beside the point but there are multiple surveys of the Gazan population that asks the questions you lied about and came out with a much different conclusion.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Most people consider every issue to be black and white, which is ironic considering Israel/Palestine is probably the most gray issue in modern times.

      I’ll list out enough points that each side will hate some of them and want to argue. I hear that’s a great way to get up votes. But in the end I hope we can agree on most of these as facts, even if there are excuses and reasons.

      • Most Gazans want to kill every Israeli Source
      • Israel actually is killing much of Gaza
      • There are valid reasons for the Palestinians to hate the Israelis
      • The Israelis are under constant attack, even if they rebuff most of the attacks
      • The Israelis have a right to defend themselves
      • Israel has gone much farther than defense warrants.
      • Israel is going to use this as an excuse to settle more Palestinian land
      • Netanyahu enabled Hamas
      • People have a right to protest, and the crackdowns on peaceful protests are despicable
      • Count042@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Most Gazans want to kill every Israeli Source

        Still waiting on that source. Cause that link you posted didn’t make that claim at all.

        Did you not read it, like, at all? Or are you lying intentionally to try and justify genocide and try and make a black and white issue (Is genocide ever justified?) into something … nuanced?

        I will say, this is the most subtle form of pro-genocide propaganda I’ve seen. Well done.

        • MrBobDobalina@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Right?? Their very first point is such inflammatory bs, it’s insane that they would try to prove it with that source. The most basic reading comprehension will tell you that they are making stuff up.

          Most Gazans agreeing that the actions of Hamas on Oct 7 were ‘correct’ does not equate to those same Gazans agreeing with every single Hamas stance. Such a dumb leap to go from that to “Most Gazans want to kill every Israeli”… Pathetic, evil, pro-genocide bullshit

      • TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I want to point out a key distinction that you successfully made here. Individual Israelis have a right to defend themselves. I, personally, do not recognize the state of Israel nor its supposed right to self-defense.

        • WamGams
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          6 months ago

          You recognizing the state of Israel does nothing to change the fact that they exist and have the right to defend themselves from terrorists.

          You aren’t personally offering to house 8 million Jews as a way to entice them to leave their current location and nobody else is either, therefore, 8 million Jews are in Israel and have a formed government to protect themselves with.

          If the goal is piece, which I think we agree it is, denying Jews a homeland is counter productive to those goals. Try bringing credible paths forward.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          No, that is absolutely not what I meant. Israelis have a right to form a government, and that government is right to protect its citizens (that is not what it’s doing right now).

          You did make me change the second part from “has a right” to “is right to”, which is interesting.

          Palestinians should also have a right to form a government. If I say they have a right to protect their citizens, that likely means war and genocide. I’d hope that if the Palestinians form a government and a state, they realize that they lose the war and decide that peace is in their best interests.

          Either way, the full on genocide needs to stop. Whether I think the Gazans are murderous, religious zealots or not*, they’re still human. They deserve aid. Israel’s blocking of aid should have been enough that we pull support. Maybe we did behind the scenes, who knows. We shouldn’t be funding Israel (or Northern Virginia, really), as much as we do. I don’t think Israel collapses without US munitions, certainly not to Palestine. Defending them from Iran is fine (which is also not what we’re doing).

          Palestinians don’t want peace. Israelis don’t want peace. What the fuck are we supposed to do about it? We can try to limit the damage in the short term (and we should), but I don’t have long term solutions, and I don’t think anyone else does either.

          *(I understand they have reason to be. But is wanting to murder an entire people ever justified?)

          • baru@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            But is wanting to murder an entire people ever justified?

            The previous person already said you should back that statement up. And then you repeat it again.