PBS’s Amanpour and Company is, apparently, where irony goes to die. On the Wednesday show, first aired on CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour welcomed alleged comedian Bassem Youssef, who has family in Gaza, to lament double standards in media coverage on Israeli and Palestinian suffering while the latter told Israel “to go F itself,” something no media personality would ever have any guest say about Palestinians.
Amanpour recalled that “we spoke to Queen Rania on this program several times. In fact, she was actually the first leader to come out and talk about double standards, and her interview with us was incredibly widely seen. And she said, similar to you, that, you know, there is a double standard in the way Palestinian suffering has always been reported and continues to be reported. It is really hard to hear you say and hear others say that they don't look at us as people.”
There is a double standard, just not the one Amanpour thinks. The media runs story after story on Palestinian suffering, even more so than they run stories on Ukrainian suffering and unlike Hamas, Ukraine didn’t start that war, while trying to claim Hamas has nothing to do with ordinary Palestinians. The media uncritically repeats Hamas’s casualty propaganda numbers and people like Amanpour interview people like Youssef.
As for Youssef, he declared, “Because they were deemed animals, terrorists, Hamas sympathizers. The thing is Israel reminds me a lot with Trump. Remember when Trump was saying lie after lie, one atrocious thing after the other, and by the time people deal with this, he's already moved on, the people are like, all right, that's Donald Trump?”
Ignoring all the Hamas weapons and fighters found at various hospitals in Gaza, Youssef continued, “Israel is doing the same. You know, they're doing -- remember when we were out all the rage about like babies killed in incubators, then baby killed with hangers, and then people killed stampede. And then, it's old news now. Remember when we were talking about, did Hamas or did Israel bombed the Ali Hospital and since then, Israel bombed 36 hospitals? It's just, they move too fast.”
Youssef added “And by the time you just like catch up and you corner them was like, well, ‘I'm entitled.’ They were like, ‘if you talk about it, you're anti-Semitic. I am doing this to protect myself.’ Here's the thing, every time Israel say like “Israel have the right to defend itself, Israel had the right to exist,” and I want to say like Israel have the right to go F itself.
As Youssef cracked himself up, Amanpour sat there silently, unsuccessfully trying to hide the smile she knew that she, as a supposedly truth-telling journalist, was not supposed to have. Instead of calling Youssef out on his lies or observing that, despite all the talk about how Israelis benefit from double standards, she would never have on an Israeli comedian to tell the Palestinians “to go F” themselves, she offered up a weak “That's your stand-up. It's not your stand-up, actually.”
Here is a transcript for the April 3 show:
PBS Amanpour and Company
4/3/2024
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You know, we spoke to Queen Rania on this program several times. In fact, she was actually the first leader to come out and talk about double standards, and her interview with us was incredibly widely seen. And she said, similar to you, that, you know, there is a double standard in the way Palestinian suffering has always been reported and continues to be reported.
It is really hard to hear you say and hear others say that they don't look at us as people.
BASSEM YOUSSEF: Because they were deemed animals, terrorists, Hamas sympathizers. The thing is Israel reminds me a lot with Trump. Remember when Trump was saying lie after lie, one atrocious thing after the other, and by the time people deal with this, he's already moved on, the people are like, all right, that's Donald Trump?
Israel is doing the same. You know, they're doing -- remember when we were out all the rage about like babies killed in incubators, then baby killed with hangers, and then people killed stampede. And then, it's old news now. Remember when we were talking about, did Hamas or did Israel bombed the Ali (ph) Hospital and since then, Israel bombed 36 hospitals? It's just they move too fast.
And by the time you just like catch up and you corner them was like, well, “I'm entitled.” They were like, “if you talk about it, you're anti-Semitic. I am doing this to protect myself.” Here's the thing, every time Israel say like “Israel have the right to defend itself, Israel had the right to exist,” and I want to say like Israel have the right to go F itself.
AMANPOUR: That's your stand-up. It's not your stand-up, actually.
YOUSSEF: It's not.
