Challenging ‘hypocrisy’: Irish comic takes on Western perspectives on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

By Aysu Bicer

DUBLIN (AA) — Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey has been making waves across the world with his unique brand of comedy to shine light on misleading information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Through his stand-up routines, short and thought-provoking videos, and passionate stance on the plight of the Palestinians, Hickey is challenging Western perspectives on the conflict and “hypocrisy” with humor, managing to capture the attention of a global audience.

One of the central themes of Hickey’s comedy revolves around exposing the hypocrisy in Western perspectives on the conflict.

“I think in this part of the world, in the West, generally in Europe and America, there’s a kind of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the struggling of people who aren’t white. I think there’s a natural inclination to feel more empathy for Israeli victims,” he explains.

- ‘I tried to draw attention to hypocrisy’

Hickey highlighted that, while the vast majority of people agree that the killing of innocent people is always wrong, there is an “obsession with condemning Hamas,” as if it was the sole source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That Gaza-based Palestinian resistance group had pointed to growing violence by Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territories and the recent storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem as it initiated a multi-pronged surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Tel Aviv responded with a protracted series of airstrikes on Gaza — many on churches and mosques, hospitals, and residential areas — along with a blockade of food, fuel, water, and aid deliveries. This has led to a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and widespread international outrage, with members of the public and world leaders accusing Israel of war crimes. ​​​​​​​

Amid the flurry of news reports and commentary triggered by the latest escalation in the conflict, Hickey has been working to “draw attention to hypocrisy” in Irish and world politics.

One of his recent sketches draws parallels between the Russia-Ukraine war and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It points out the inconsistency of the West as it welcomes Kyiv asking for arms and funds, while shunning Palestinian requests for help with the problem of being expelled from their home.

This is despite the similarities between the two struggles, according to Hickey, as the Palestinians, like Ukraine, “have had their land confiscated, they’ve been invaded, they’ve been treated as second-class citizens, and they’ve been, in some cases, condemned to life in an open-air prison in a tiny area of 2 million people.

Seeking to challenge viewers to think critically about the information they consume, he said Westerners are “filled with news constantly, that this Ukrainian struggle is a noble struggle. It’s a struggle for freedom, for liberation, from a brutal colonial force. And so, we must support Ukraine and, with financial assistance, with hearts and minds, and we must feel huge empathy for them, which, by the way, I totally agree with … The Ukrainian struggle is a human struggle.”

“And yet, when they fight back for their liberation and their independence, we’re made to feel like in this part of the world … they don’t deserve freedom fighting and they’re terrorists.”

- ‘Huge resemblance’ between Palestine, Ukraine

Hickey argues that ethnic bias and “outrageous racist hypocrisy” are to blame for this difference in the Western opinion on Ukraine and the Palestinians despite this “huge resemblance.”

“I think when it comes down to it, that’s all based on a Western perspective on brown and black people, that they’re not the same as us. We are exceptional.

“When they fight for freedom, they’re terrorists. When we fight for freedom, we’re noble freedom fighters, and I think that’s the difference and that upsets me as a human being.”

Western media bias is another contributing factor, he said underlining the need to report on the context of decades of Israeli occupation in Palestine when covering the fighting.

“To understand what happens when you trap somebody, when you trap a whole people, and put them in a cage, effectively … and you want them to stay in that cage and cooperate and ultimately just die quietly, and when they burst out of the cage and they give you a bloody nose, the story can’t start with the bloody nose,” he said.

“The story has to start with, ‘Why did you take over their land and why did you reduce them to second-class citizens’.”

- ‘Islamophobia underneath everything in West’

Hickey said his video on Palestine was met with an outpour of support from the Muslim world, including many those who voiced appreciation for his willingness to call out what he thinks is underlying Islamophobia in Western news, domestic policy, and foreign policy.

“I’ve been proven to be correct there, I think, by the response from the from the Arab world, who all say, ‘Yeah, this is totally Western hypocrisy. Thank you for calling it out. It’s unusual to hear that from a Western voice.’”

He also highlighted the need for governments, including Ireland’s, to do more for the Palestinian cause, welcoming Ireland’s position as an “outlier” in the West as it has not “gone along with the overall European perspective which is to support Israel and put up the lights of the Israeli flag on its government buildings.”

Most Irish people, according to Hickey, “have an understanding of colonialism that transcends religion, and it transcends race, and I think because of our own colonial experience.

“It doesn’t really matter if you’re brown or black when there is an oppressor and an oppressed, it’s an international struggle,” he said.

Hickey encouraged people to reach out to him with ideas for him to raise awareness with his comedy, particularly those related to issues in the Islamic world, as he aims to use his comedy to shed light on “injustice and hypocrisy.”

“It’s very hard to be authentically on the side of displaced people or people who’ve suffered Islamophobia or racism unless you speak to them directly.”

“I would love people to feel comfortable with contacting me to say like, ‘you know, this is another issue that you might raise awareness of’, because I’d love to right some wrongs and to highlight more hypocrisy with my comedy work,” he said.

Besides the positive messages, Hickey said he also got threats, including some unconventional ones.

“There was one quite amusing one, it’s from somebody claiming to be a Zionist witch and she said that she’s put a curse on me.

“So I’m appealing to the Arab world if you feel you can undo a witch’s curse, particularly a Zionist witch’s curse, please do so because I am in grave danger.”

- ‘We can stop this genocide’

Hickey stressed that public action and outcry could help stop the violence and “genocide” going on in Gaza, and the role of media to help increase awareness on their plight.

“If enough people are made aware of the hypocrisy between the West’s stance on Ukraine and Palestine, then it just comes down to a choice of are you willing to support the genocide of these people.

“Are you willing to support a state that, at the moment and for decades, has been trying to ethnically cleanse these people (Palestinians) and obliterate them from the land, whether or not they’re in Hamas — it does not matter they’re all legitimate targets (for Israel) at the moment.”

“If … you care about fellow human beings, particularly if you’re Irish or you’re from a country that’s been colonized, these people (Palestinians) need us right now and if enough of us stand up and hit the streets and make our voices heard we can stop this genocide.”