"Last Friday, during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, CNN commentator and former Obama adviser Van Jones claimed that Iran and Qatar are running a disinformation campaign to manipulate young Americans into caring about Gaza. To make his point, he crudely imitated what he said appears on their social media feeds: Dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, Diddy, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby. The audience laughed."
"The remark, a crass attempt at humour that juxtaposed mass death with celebrity scandal, laid bare the moral drift that has infected American commentary on Palestine. What should have prompted grief instead provoked laughter. A reality steeped in blood became a punchline. It was not merely a gaffe but a revelation of how far the conversation has strayed from moral awareness."
Van Jones imitated social media posts saying "Dead Gaza baby" on HBO's Real Time, prompting audience laughter and exposing a moral drift in American commentary on Palestine where grief becomes a punchline. The crude juxtaposition of mass death with celebrity scandal revealed a tendency to trivialise authentic suffering. Jones apologised, claiming his intent was to show foreign manipulation, but intent did not erase the consequence of reducing murdered children to props in a morality play about disinformation. A deeper problem exists in US media: a distrust of Palestinian pain unless it is filtered through Western validation and hierarchy.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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