Palestinians and their supporters have apparently compelled a popular Israeli comedian to flee Qatar after he tried to use the World Cup as a venue to engage in friendly dialogue with fans from across the Middle East.
For the first few days of the World Cup, videos posted to social media by Guy Hochman were a big hit in Israel.
In the clips, Hochman is seen starting friendly conversations with fans from other Middle East countries. But in most, as soon as Hochman reveals he is Israeli, the other person walks away in disgust.
Ironically, the only clip in which Hochman continued to be treated in a friendly manner was the one with Iranian fans, nearly all of whom seemed happy to find out he was Israeli, one of them even kissing him on the cheek.
מונדיאל, ניסיתי לעשות שלום גם עם האיראנים. pic.twitter.com/A8vLko3FQA
— גיא הוכמן (@HochmanGuy) November 27, 2022
The face-to-face rejections weren’t the problem. Hochman no doubt expected most Arabs to shun him as an Israeli. But the online reactions to the videos did become a problem, and one that Hochman finally felt was putting his life in danger.
In perhaps the most shameful example of incitement against Hochman, former Palestinian-American journalist Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, who likes to point out that she’s a former contributor to CNN, posted to Twitter a video interspersing clips of Hochman during his IDF service with clips of Gaza being struck by Israeli bombs during one of the recent wars.
افضحوهم. مجرمون. #مونديال_قطر_2022 pic.twitter.com/kKfH0qZXP0
— Samar D Jarrah (@SamarDJarrah) November 27, 2022
The clips were accompanied by text calling Hochman a “criminal” and a “soldier of the occupation,” as well as informing her hundreds of thousands of followers that the Israeli is presently in Qatar as a dangerous “Zionist” threat.
“This is the face of Israel at the World Cup,” Dahmash-Jarrah ended her video.
Fearing that he could soon become a target of violence, Hochman, who was scheduled to be in Qatar until the end of the week, immediately booked himself a ticket back to Israel, reported the N12 news portal.
