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Jon Stewart had plenty of fun with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s visit to the United States.
Netanyahu addressed Congress, arguing that President Barack Obama shouldn’t be negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Critics called the speech an extended campaign speech for the prime minister.
Netanyahu came at the invitation of Republican leadership, with Obama suggesting if the tables were reversed and Democratic leadership had invited the President of France during the Iraq War, Republicans would have called it disrespectful to President George W. Bush.
Stewart took it a step further.
“They would have gone f—ing bananas. Republicans would have demanded the inviters be arrested for sedition and treason,” Stewart said, recalling the Freedom Fries craze of the early 2000s.
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Stewart mocked Netanyahu, who said he spoke for all Jews.
“I speak for all Jews! Including the ones who don’t want me to, because those Jews are wrong,” Stewart said a in a booming voice, imitating Netanyahu.
Stewart compared the speech to the one Netanyahu delivered before Congress in 1996 in which he warned a nuclear-armed Iran was imminent. In Tuesday’s speech, he said very similar things, though in the 1996 speech, he also predicted that if Saddam Hussein regime fell, it would likely promote stability in the region — an idea Stewart noted did not pan out.
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Stewart also mocked CNN, who used a Star of David swipe to transition between segments. He also took aim at famously handsy Vice President Joe Biden, whom cable news pundits said intentionally was out of the country during the speech as a snub to Netanyahu.
Stewart sarcastically said Biden was out of the country to snub the prime minister, “not to protect Mrs. Netanyahu from Groper Cleveland.”
The response to the speech was a deafening, extended ovation, which Stewart called, “by far, the longest blow job a Jewish man has ever received.”
Email: Aaron.Couch@THR.com
Twitter: @AaronCouch
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