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During an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO on Friday, Jones claimed without evidence that young people in the United States are being manipulated by Iran and Qatar through social media to care about the carnage in Gaza.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cIf you are a young person, you are opening up your phone, and all you see is dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, Diddy, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby,\u201d he said, as the audience erupted in laughter.<\/p>\n Making light of the more than 20,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel and invoking the wrapper Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, who has been involved in a sex abuse scandal<\/a>, for comedic effect, sparked outrage against Jones.<\/p>\n The commentator \u2013 who has spoken at pro-Israel rallies \u2013 subsequently apologised.<\/p>\n \u201cThe suffering of the people of Gaza \u2014 especially the children \u2014 is not a punch line. I\u2019m deeply sorry it came across that way,\u201d Jones wrote on social media.<\/p>\n But Jones \u2013 who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama \u2013 did not mention who is behind the suffering of Palestinians, nor did he walk back his baseless claim of a \u201cdisinformation\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n Jones\u2019s comments were the latest in a long history of efforts to dehumanise Palestinians in the US.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera looks at 15 statements by US politicians, commentators and celebrities since the start of the war on Gaza two years ago that called for mass violence against Palestinians, painted them as inherently evil or dismissed Israeli atrocities \u2013 including the killing of children \u2013 as a justified necessity of war:<\/p>\n Congressman Brian Mast:<\/strong> \u201cI don\u2019t think we would so lightly throw around the term \u2018innocent Nazi civilians\u2019 during World War II. It is not a far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n Congressman Max Miller:<\/strong> \u201cWe\u2019re going to turn that [Palestine] into a parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Congressman Andy Ogles:<\/strong> \u201cI think we should kill<\/a> them all.\u201d<\/p>\n Congressman Randy Fine:<\/strong> \u201cRelease the hostages. Until then, starve away.\u201d<\/p>\n Congressman Tim Walberg:<\/strong> \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It [Gaza] should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Tom Cotton:<\/strong> \u201cIsrael doesn\u2019t need patronising lectures about civilian casualties. As far as I\u2019m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Lindsey Graham:<\/strong> \u201cWe are in a religious war here, I am with Israel. Whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself; level the place.\u201d<\/p>\n Former President Joe Biden:<\/strong> \u201cI have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I\u2019m sure innocents have been killed, and it\u2019s the price of waging a war.\u201d<\/p>\n Former President Bill Clinton:<\/strong> \u201cHamas makes sure that they\u2019re shielded. They\u2019ll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Former White House spokesperson John Kirby:<\/strong> \u201cBeing honest about the fact that there have been civilian casualties and that there likely will be more is being honest \u2013 because that\u2019s what war is.\u201d<\/p>\n Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley:<\/strong> \u201cFinish them.\u201d (Written on an Israeli bomb<\/a>)<\/p>\n Atlantic Magazine writer Graeme Wood:<\/strong> \u201cIt is possible to kill children legally, if for example one is being attacked by an enemy who hides behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n Singer Kid Rock:<\/strong> \u201cI don\u2019t disagree with what Israel is doing. It\u2019s like they should just go in there and be like, \u2018You know what, we want our hostages back. If we don\u2019t have them back, the clock starts now. In 24 hours, we are gonna start bombing m************, and killing civilians, 30,000 to 40,000 a f****** time\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Actor and producer James Woods:<\/strong> \u201cNo ceasefire. No compromise. No forgiveness. #KillThemAll\u201d.<\/p>\n Fox News commentator Jesse Watters:<\/strong> \u201cThis population in Palestine is hostile, it\u2019s uneducated. It\u2019s even more radicalised than they were at the beginning of this. I mean, now, they have no homes at all. They\u2019re even more hateful of the Israelis. And their birthrate is explosive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Washington, DC \u2013 CNN commentator Van Jones has been facing backlash for making a crass joke about Palestinian children killed by Israel. During an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO on Friday, Jones claimed without evidence that young people in the United States are being manipulated by Iran and Qatar through social … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\u2018Not-a-punchline-15-dehumanising-quotes-on-Gaza-atrocities-by.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5418,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5416\/revisions\/5418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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