John Oliver excoriated Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) for his “disgusting” assertion that there are “very few innocent Palestinians” in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In a House floor speech earlier this month, Mast criticized “the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians” and said: “I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”
Oliver delivered a sharp takedown on “Last Week Tonight” Sunday.
“There are absolutely innocent Palestinian civilians,” he said. “In the same way there are Floridians who aren’t brain-dead bigots with a penis for a head. A region’s worst does not represent them.”
More than 11,100 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks since the Hamas incursion on Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel declared war after Hamas militants killed at least 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages back to Gaza.
Human rights experts have accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and called for Israel to cease its relentless bombardment of the densely populated Palestinian enclave as the civilian death toll continues to skyrocket and the humanitarian crisis deepens.
Oliver also criticized “dipshits” on Fox News and Newsmax for suggesting Hamas represents the people of Gaza because it won the region’s last election in 2006.
“Look, it is true that Gazans did at one point elect Hamas,” Oliver said. “But if you think that makes them all complicit in war crimes their government commits, then boy, do I have bad news for you about decades of U.S. foreign policy.”
He also noted that there were also “huge asterisks” on “Gazans electing Hamas,” considering the election was nearly 17 years ago, when much of Gaza’s population — which is nearly 50% children — had not even been born, as well as multiple other factors that were at play.
Watch his commentary below on “Last Week Tonight.”