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

    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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      6 months ago

      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

          PLOS Medicine Survey[4] 460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. March 2003 to June 2011

      • 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.