For the last three weeks the late night comedy shows have relentlessly attacked President Trump amid the war in Iran, but on Monday, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart went over the other half of the American-Israeli alliance in an interview with former Biden national security advisor Jake Sullivan on The Daily Show. Both men would also use Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare the U.S. is hypocritical in how it talks about its enemies by erasing key facts from their history lessons and morally obscene analogies.
Stewart began by somehow managing to memory hole October 7 as he compared Israel’s war against Hamas to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:
So, this gets us to the interesting point about belligerent countries and about belligerent nations, and that is the difference between capability and ambition, and I think we're seeing that now with Benjamin Netanyahu—by the way, when you were in office, how many times did you have to say to Benjamin Netanyahu, like, ‘Don't bomb that?’ Like, do they listen? You know, I was so struck—this is a tangent. He seems [bleep] nuts. It’s the kind of thing—I remembered when Russia bombed Ukraine and you guys came out with very powerful statements, 'These are war crimes,' you’re against that and then Benjamin Netanyahu bombs Gaza and it kills thousands of thousands civilians in the U.S. is like, ‘Hey, guys be cool.’ Like, it's so weird to me that we don't take—why is that?
Jon Stewart takes aim at the other half of the American-Israeli coalition against Iran by doing some October 7 erasure and making a morally obscene analogy, "I remembered when Russia bombed Ukraine and you guys came out with very powerful statements, 'These are war crimes,'… pic.twitter.com/K3bsHe2QD2
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) March 24, 2026
The correct answer would have been that Israel, like Ukraine, was attacked by an enemy that seeks to destroy it. The fact that Hamas isn’t Russia in terms of capabilities doesn’t matter. However, Sullivan was eager to appease his liberal host and audience, as he also didn’t mention October 7, “Well, there's a couple of things. I mean, first, historically, the U.S. has been harder on our enemies than we’ve been on our friends, and that is true across the board. But secondly, Jon, the devastation in Gaza… we tried to get up every day to end the war, and we didn’t end it fast enough, but when we left office, we did have a ceasefire in place, and that’s what we handed off to the Trump administration.”
While also fighting Iran, Israel is also currently fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon because the terrorist group decided to involve itself in the war after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. However, Stewart again omitted that key detail to make it seem like Israel started that fight, “But there's no conditions. We can say, like, you know, 'No bombing?' Those are our bombs—we give them those weapons. We can’t dictate—because I don't know the end game. Like, right now, he is bombing Iran but he’s also still bombing in Gaza, and now has decided to invade Southern Lebanon? Or bomb that? Again, it gets to—you can degrade capability, but all you're doing is creating more ambition and how is that a recipe for a lasting peace?”
Getting back more to current issues, Stewart ignores that Hezbollah kicked off the current round of fighting there, "But there's no conditions. We can say, like, you know, “No bombing?” Those are our bombs—we give them those weapons. We can’t dictate—I don't know the end game.… pic.twitter.com/y6gU47itR0
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) March 24, 2026
Sullivan didn’t exactly answer the question, but he did allege that the Israeli war aim of breaking Iran isn’t in our interest:
Well, we had assumed on our podcast a couple weeks ago named Danny Citrinowicz, who is the Israeli Defense Force’s intelligence lead for Iran—was that for 15 years. And what he basically said was, when it comes to Iran, what Israel would like to do under this particular government is break just Iran and cause chaos, because as far as they are concerned a broken Iran is less of a threat to Israel.
Now, the United States of America cannot think about it that way because a broken Iran means a broken global economy because they threaten in the Straits of Hormuz, it means a potential refugee flow like we saw after the war in Syria into Europe. It means a lot else besides. So, I do believe when it comes to this war in Iran there's a real divergence between Israel's ultimate aims and the United States ultimate aims and part of the challenge we have seen is that when we ask what is the administration doing? They cannot answer that question because they don't know why they are there in the first place. They have not been able to give us an answer as to what this is about.
That does not make any sense. The strait will be reopened either through a negotiated end to hostilities or by force, but either way the damage to the regime's ability to project power across the wider Middle East will have been diminished, and that is a good thing for both Israel and the U.S.
Here is a transcript for the March 23 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
3/23/2026
11:32 PM ET
JON STEWART: So, this gets us to the interesting point about belligerent countries and about belligerent nations, and that is the difference between capability and ambition, and I think we're seeing that now with Benjamin Netanyahu—by the way, when you were in office, how many times did you have to say to Benjamin Netanyahu, like “Don't bomb that?” Like, do they listen?
You know, I was so struck—this is a tangent. He seems [bleep] nuts. It’s the kind of thing—I remembered when Russia bombed Ukraine and you guys came out with very powerful statements, “These are war crimes,” you’re against that and then Benjamin Netanyahu bombs Gaza and it kills thousands of thousands civilians in the U.S. is like, “hey, guys be cool.”
Like, it's so weird to me that we don't take—why is that?
JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, there's a couple of things. I mean, first, historically, the U.S. has been harder on our enemies than we’ve been on our friends, and that is true across the board. But secondly, Jon, the devastation in Gaza, the killing of civilians, the harm, the suffering, the pain—
STEWART: Right.
SULLIVAN: —was something we tried to get up every day to end the war, and we didn’t end it fast enough, but when we left office, we did have a ceasefire in place, and that’s what we handed off to the Trump administration.
STEWART: But there's no conditions. We can say, like, you know, “No bombing?” Those are our bombs—we give them those weapons. We can’t dictate—because I don't know the end game. Like, right now, he is bombing Iran but he’s also still bombing in Gaza, and now has decided to invade Southern Lebanon? Or bomb that? Again, it gets to—you can degrade capability, but all you're doing is creating more ambition and how is that a recipe for a lasting peace?
SULLIVAN: Well, we had assumed on our podcast a couple weeks ago named Danny Citrinowicz, who is the Israeli Defense Force’s intelligence lead for Iran—was that for 15 years. And what he basically said was, when it comes to Iran, what Israel would like to do under this particular government is break just Iran and cause chaos, because as far as they are concerned a broken Iran is less of a threat to Israel.
Now, the United States of America cannot think about it that way because a broken Iran means a broken global economy because they threaten in the Straits of Hormuz, it means a potential refugee flow like we saw after the war in Syria into Europe. It means a lot else besides. So, I do believe when it comes to this war in Iran there's a real divergence between Israel's ultimate aims and the United States ultimate aims and part of the challenge we have seen is that when we ask what is the administration doing? They cannot answer that question because they don't know why they are there in the first place.
STEWART: Right.
SULLIVAN: They have not been able to give us an answer as to what this is about.
