Actor Tiffany Haddish has boarded a 16-hour flight to Israel to see with her own eyes the alleged genocide of Palestinian people by the Israeli government. The comedian said that she can’t believe everything she is reading on social media and wants to go to the Holy Land to ask questions and find out what is going on for herself.
“I need to go see. I’m one of those people,” she said on an Instagram Live before taking off for her trip to the Middle Eastern nation.
“I’m gonna sleep the whole 16 hours [and] go see for myself,” she continued, adding, “I don’t believe everything, you know, social media be saying. I know a lot of stuff on social media not true because … I see stuff people say about me and I live my life. I’m living my life and I’m like ‘That’s not what I said. That’s not true.’”
The “Girls Trip” actor swirled her orange juice around in her glass, checking people who thought she might have been drinking a mimosa considering her history with driving while intoxicated.
She shared her itinerary after she shared what she was drinking and all of the snacks she brought on the trip. She captioned the Instagram video, “On my way to Israel to learn and see with my own eyes.”
“Gotta go to Israel first. Isn’t Gaza in Israel? Ain’t it all in the same country? The same little piece of land the same surrounded by water?” she asked her followers, who started talking about the occupied territories in the comment section.
While Haddish appears unbothered by the negative comments in the business class of the flight, many on social media are dragging her for not prioritizing those in Gaza over visiting the tourist sites in Israel and even joking that she is going to find herself a husband.
“You’re on the wrong side of history,” one person said. A separate comment read, “So casually going to witness a genocide firsthand. #freepalestine.”
“The situation is heart-wrenching, resembling a scene from a horror movie, with the tragic killing of thousands of Palestinians,” someone tweeted. “Amidst this, she approaches the trip as a leisurely, paid vacation, which I find utterly disheartening.”
It’ll hit her.
— Sheila728 (@EinOdMilvaddo) February 21, 2024
One more commenter quipped, “You must be out yo rabbit ass mind. Israel ain’t Compton ok.”
Multiple people pointed out in the comment section of the video how the Palestinians have been displaced, likening their colonization and oppression to that of the Indigenous people of America. Some people just said they were extremely “disappointed” that she seemed to be a blank slate on her position on the Israel-Hamas war. Some were outraged that she confidently said that Gaza is in Israel.
“Respectfully, Gaza is not in Israel,” one person attempted to explain. “And Israel is in Palestine. The state of Israel is illegal occupation.”
Haddish may not know where is Gaza and what is going on, but many organizations have published numbers on the war since it began within days of the militant Palestinian group Hamas launching an Oct. 7 attack on Israel from Gaza that killed more than 1,200 people.
Since the commencement of the conflict last October, Israel’s military operations in Gaza, the territory it seized in the Six-Day War in 1967, have resulted in the deaths of 29,000 Palestinians, predominantly women and children, with some 69,000 sustaining injuries and over 1,000 individuals missing or presumed deceased, as reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The severity of the military tactics employed against the mostly civilian population of Palestinian people prompted South Africa to bring Israel before the International Court of Justice, accusing the actions of constituting genocide. One tactic involves obstructing the flow of food into the region, exacerbating humanitarian concerns.
Even with this strong language, the ICJ did not call for a full ceasefire, and the conflict continues.
In response to the crisis, the International Court of Justice mandated Israel to take measures to prevent genocidal acts and provide assistance to Palestine.
Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu made a statement saying that the allegations of genocide are “not only false” but “outrageous.” He also said any action that they have taken is withing Israel’s “an inherent right to defend itself.”
Despite having access to all of this information about the Israel-Hamas conflict, Haddish is set on her own discovery and doesn’t care what anyone has to say.
