What Dave Chappelle Has Said About Israel-Hamas Conflict

Dave Chappelle is no stranger to courting controversy with his comedy, but he rarely backs down over something he has said on stage.

The comedian made headlines after a show in Boston on October 18 where he addressed the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip following an attack by Hamas on Israeli settlements. The military arm of the Palestinian political group entered southern Israel on October 7 killing more than 1,000 people and taking between 229 hostages. Hamas has since released four hostages and said 22 were killed by Israeli airstrikes.

In Gaza, the death toll has surged past 7,300 and more than 110 people have been killed in violence and Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank, according to the Associated Press. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, primarily during the initial attack by Hamas, AP reported.

Chappelle addressed the controversy following his remarks at the Boston performance at a show in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday night where he told the 20,000-strong audience not to believe what they read about his comments. The comedian is known for not allowing cell phones at his show and said he was misquoted.

“Right now, I’m in trouble because the Jewish community is upset,” he told the crowd, according to The New York Times. “But I cannot express this enough: No matter what you read about that show in Boston, you will never see quotation marks around anything I said. They don’t know what I said. It’s all hearsay.”

He said: “The other night, I said something about Palestine in Boston and got misquoted all over the world. And I will not repeat what I said.”

Before he could continue, the newspaper reported that a woman in the crowd shouted, “Free Palestine.”

“Please, please, miss,” Chappelle said to her. “Listen. Don’t start it up or I’m going to be in the news cycle for another week. This thing that’s happening in the Middle East is bigger than everybody.”

“This is what’s happening and, believe me, I understand what’s happening in Israel is a nightmare. What’s happening in Palestine is a nightmare.”

Chappelle said: “There’s only two kinds of people in the world: people who love other people and the people that have things to make them afraid to love other people. Pray for everyone in Israel. Pray for everyone in Palestine.”

“And remember that every dead person is a dead person,” he said and described the conflict as a “tragedy.”

At the show in Boston, multiple people walked out of the arena over Chappelle’s comments and one person told him to “shut up,” according to a Wall Street Journal report.

He condemned Hamas’ attack as well as the Israeli government’s decision to continue its air raids on Gaza and cut off water, food, and other essential supplies to the strip.

Some people shouted “free Palestine” while some others said, “what about Hamas?”

On Wednesday in Raleigh, in response to some commotion from the balcony in the arena, Chappelle said in what The New York Times described as a “mischievous tone”: “That still might be the Jews coming for me.”

“Sorry,” Chappelle said in a stretched-out way, according to the NYT report. “I don’t want the Jews to know what I said.”

In June last year, Chappelle doubled down on comments he made about the transgender community, calling students who criticized him “instruments of oppression.”

Around 100 Netflix staff walked out of the streaming giant’s headquarters in October 2021 after it agreed to air another Chappelle special, despite his comments.

“Chappelle’s brand has become synonymous with ridiculing trans people and other marginalized communities,” said LGBTQ+ media advocacy group GLAAD after the release of his Netflix special, The Closer, in 2021.