Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef made an appearance on British host Piers Morgan’s show ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored’, discussing the treatment of Palestinians and Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
The clips of Youssef’s sarcastic comments on the Israel-Gaza war throughout the interview have gone viral on social media platforms.
While calling the assault “terrible”, Youssef also spoke about the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the civilian casualties amid continuing Israeli retaliatory air strikes.
Youssef was seen criticising Hamas fighters in the video and attempting to clarify that people have grown numb to the fact that civilian casualties are an inevitable part of warfare.
Youssef began by sarcastically remarking, “We get all our news secondhand because my wife’s family lives in Gaza. They have cousins and uncles there and their house also was bombed.
“We haven’t been able to communicate with them in the past three days. Communication has been lost so we don’t know how are they doing, but we are used to that!”
‘Palestinians never die’
One of the moments that netizens were quick to notice was when Youssef passed a sarcastic comment about Palestinians.
He said: “It’s very repetitive. We are used to that… It’s just like those Palestinians are very dramatic, ‘Oh Israel killing us’. But they never die. They always come back.
“They are very difficult to kill. I know because I’m married to one. I tried many times, couldn’t kill.”
“I tried to get to her many times but she uses our kids as human shields. I can never take her out,” Youssef said with a straight face.
Bassem Youssef’s take on Ben Shapiro
Youssef mocked American columnist Ben Shapiro for publicly endorsing Israel’s “self-defence”, asking how an occupation could be defending themselves.
In an appearance on the show earlier, Shapiro said, “The only solution to the Israel-Gaza war is that Israel should annex Gaza and kill as many people so that what is happening does not happen again.”
Youssef in response to Shapiro’s remarks, said: “More than 3,500 people have so far been killed. How many more people do we need to kill so that Ben Shapiro is happy?”
The satirist then went on to mock the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and said, “I applaud Israel for doing something no military force in the world does. It warns civilians before bombing them, that is so cute.
“I asked my wife’s family if Hamas forced them to stay home so that they could be bombed and can be used as human shield and she denied,” he told Morgan.
Why are people being killed in West Bank?
Although Youssef agreed that Hamas fighters should be eradicated, he asked why people were being killed in the West Bank where there is no Hamas presence.
“What is there excuse to kill people there?” Bassem Youssef said.
On being asked if he was Israeli and what had happened to him, Youssef said, “I would kill as many people as I can because the world is letting me do it.”
“Hamas is the source for all evil. Let’s imagine a world without Hamas. Let’s name this world the ‘West Bank’. Thirty-seven Palestinian kids were killed — no music festival, no paragliding, no Hamas.”
