Dave Chappelle Criticizes Israel, Media Double Standards in New Netflix Special
By Romana Rubeo 
In his latest Netflix special, Dave Chappelle sharply criticizes Israel and the Western media’s double standards in reporting on journalist deaths in Gaza.
When American stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle released his latest Netflix special, ‘Dave Chappelle: The Unstoppable’, on December 19, early commentary largely focused on his open contempt for liberal media figures and his confrontational remarks directed at fellow comedian Bill Maher.
However, a central moment of the special involved a sharp and explicit criticism of Israel, delivered during a segment addressing the backlash over Chappelle’s appearance at a Saudi comedy festival earlier this year.
In the routine, Chappelle contrasted the international outrage surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with what he described as the far higher number of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza, framing the comparison as evidence of a media double standard.
Khashoggi and the Politics of Moral Outrage
Between September 26 and October 9, 2025, Chappelle performed at the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia.
The timing was immediately seized upon by critics: the festival coincided with the seventh anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
By appearing in Riyadh, critics argued, Chappelle had compromised his principles and tacitly legitimized a state responsible for a notorious political assassination.
The argument was framed as a defense of press freedom, human rights, and journalistic lives.
On October 3, Maher amplified this framing on Real Time, mocking Chappelle’s remark that it was “easier to talk” in Saudi Arabia than in the United States.
Counting the Dead
In ‘The Unstoppable’, Chappelle dismissed Maher’s critics. “Yes, Saudi Arabia killed a journalist,” he said, explicitly honoring Khashoggi and acknowledging the brutality of his murder.
But then he continued: “Israel’s killed 240 journalists in the last three months, so I didn’t know y’all were still counting.”
Through this line, Chappelle exposed a hierarchy of grief that has become normalized: one journalist’s death is endlessly memorialized, while the systematic killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza is treated as background noise, statistical clutter, or worse, an inconvenience to dominant narratives.
Through this line, Chappelle drew attention to what he presented as an unequal public and media response to the killing of journalists.
Chappelle explicitly acknowledged the gravity of Khashoggi’s murder, emphasizing that his remarks were not intended to minimize that crime. Instead, the point was directed at what he characterized as an inconsistent moral framework, in which certain victims are treated as emblematic while others remain marginal in mainstream coverage.
Co-option and Control of Public Speech
In the final portion of Dave Chappelle: The Unstoppable, Chappelle addresses the broader risks faced by public figures who occupy highly politicized spaces. He refers to Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was assassinated on September 10 while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Chappelle used Kirk’s death to illustrate his concern about how public voices can become targets once they are seen as aligned with a fixed ideological position.
Chappelle framed the reference as an example of how speaking publicly in a contentious political environment can carry personal danger.
Within this context, he introduced the idea of a “code word” — a phrase that would signal to the audience that his own voice has been compromised and should no longer be taken at face value.
He chose “I stand with Israel” as the hypothetical code word because, within the logic of the routine, it represents a position so opposed to his stated views in the special that its utterance would indicate he had been influenced or manipulated beyond his own intent.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in audio-visual and journalism translation.
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