Comedian Dave Chappelle’s recent pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rant appeared to backfire during a show in Boston on Thursday evening.
While the comedian’s rant was initially cheered, many audience members began to leave, many of whom were Jews.
A source posted on Facebook:
“Hello, my friends. This is my first FB post in nearly 7 years. With that said, it is also the only social media platform I have, so I hope people still use FB.
I would like to share with you an experience I had last night. [My wife] and I went to the Dave Chappelle-Standup Comedy show at TD Garden with three other couples. What started out as a funny and joyful evening for the 8 of us ending with disgust and fear.
Towards the end of his act, Chappelle mentioned the war in Israel and how he, as a Muslim, denounced Israel for its treatment of the people in Gaza and started to add in lots of false and unsubstantiated claims.
A gentleman towards the front yelled out “You should shut the F up”. Chappelle lost it on the man yelling, “You do not tell me to shut the F up at MY show”. Chappelle then started on a tirade of his beliefs leaving comedy behind and focusing purely on the politics.
While that was awful in itself, what made my heart sink and started to invoke fear was when the crowd of nearly 20,000 people started yelling out “Go Palestine. Go Hamas.” and other related hatful jargon.
The audience was cheering Chappelle on during his tirade. I was sick. We were sick. I turned to my friends and wife and said I think it is time to go.
We walked out and met up with many other Jews leaving the show. Never in my life have I felt so unsafe and so fearful of what I was witnessing.
The words alone were horrific, but we were vulnerable in a public forum. How could we know what would happen? Could violence against the Jewish members in the audience break out?
Here in Boston, how was there so much hate for Jews. How could a comedy show provide such a mechanism for people to verbally shout our their hatred for Jews?
The unfortunate icing on the cake was that all cell phones and communication devices had to be locked up, so there is no video or audio evidence. With that, I am hoping social media can spread this word.
If you have made it this far and know how to use social media better than me, please share and see if we can get this to the Boston Globe. Thank you.”
As The New York Post noted, more than 4,300 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict as the Israel Defense Forces have relentlessly pummeled the enclave with more than 6,000 bombs.
Those dead include women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Chappelle first condemned the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, but criticized what he said were war crimes in Gaza, according to people in attendance.
The comments came up when Chappelle said he didn’t think students should lose job offers for supporting Palestinians.
An audience member’s command for the comedian to shut up drew an emotional response from Chappelle, who criticized the Israeli government for cutting off water and other essentials to Gaza and accused it of killing innocent people, according to the attendees.
Some audience members cheered Chappelle on and shouted “Free Palestine,” while others yelled, “What about Hamas,” the attendees said. Some in the crowd got up and left.
Videos of Dave Chappelle’s anti-Israel rant are yet to be posted online.
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