The question on the European continent for 150 years has been whether to appease evil — to give evil what it wants in the hope that evil will then suddenly become good or at least non-offensive — or whether to fight evil and allow others to fight evil.

That battle did not end with World War II. That battle is ongoing.

On Wednesday, the State of Israel and the parents of victims who were kidnapped on October 7 and are now presumably being held and raped by Hamas, released tape from October 7 of Hamas kidnapping these females. We’re talking about women who are 18- to 20-years-old who served at a base where their job was largely to monitor the Gaza border.

On October 7, Hamas stormed the Gaza border. They killed a huge number of the women who were at this base, and then they proceeded to kidnap the others.

Until now, the footage of Hamas celebrating the capture of these women had not been released. It’s very difficult to watch.

This is what Hamas is in a nutshell, aside from the kidnapping of actual babies and the killing of other babies and the raping of women. Some of the video has been cut because there are dead bodies all over the ground, as Hamas walked in and slaughtered female soldiers.

The video shows girls seated against a wall with their hands behind their backs. The terrorists use a term for the girls that was used by ISIS to mean “sex slave” for Yazidi women. It means female captive that you own, which presumably means that you can rape those particular women.

This is nothing new from Hamas. We know that Hamas engaged in mass rape on October 7. We also know the women in captivity were raped. They’ve testified about that much.

There are some online who are doubting that Hamas actually engaged in rape. Yet there is tape of a member of Hamas telling Israeli interrogators about what he did to Israeli women during October 7.

The interrogator asks, “Approximately how old was the victim who was raped by your father?” The Hamas terrorist says, ”About 30 years old.” Interrogator: “Your father was the first to rape?” Terrorist: “Yes. Then I and Ahmed, we raped her, too, and then we left. But I left before my father and Hassan. Ahmed and I left.” Interrogator: “You left after you raped her?” Terrorist: “Yes, after we raped her.” Interrogator: “You left and went where?” Terrorist: “We left the house.” Interrogator: “Was she alive?” Terrorist: “No, my father killed her. After he finished raping her, my father killed her.”

That is what this Hamas savage said.

These are the people who the Europeans have decided deserve a state. In the aftermath of October 7, large portions of Europe are on the fence, and there are some portions of Europe that have decided that Hamas deserves a state. On Wednesday, Ireland, Norway, and Spain all said that they would recognize a Palestinian state.

Let’s make very clear, they are rewarding Hamas. On October 6, none of these states recognized a Palestinian state.

There is no Palestinian state. It exists like Narnia exists, or more appropriately, like Mordor exists. The Palestinian state does not exist. It does not have a government. It doesn’t have borders. It doesn’t have citizenship.  

But they are recognizing it in the aftermath of the slaughter of October 7. On October 6, there was no Palestinian recognition, and then October 7 happened, the greatest slaughter of Jews since World War II, which was followed by the kidnapping of 250 people; the holding hostage of women, children, elderly, Americans, and foreigners; and Hamas getting it’s a** kicked by the IDF.  

That is all that has happened since October 6. Apparently, that is what earns you a state in the modern world.

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Let’s put aside all of this nonsense about how the modern world is all about self-determination because none of these people are stumping for an independent Kurdistan. I noticed that Spain is not talking about an independent Catalonia. There is no talk of a Basque independence.

So self-determination is not the key issue here. The truth is that, normally, when a state is established, a state is established through force of arms. Typically speaking, that’s been true throughout human history. Then once that state can hold its own, people either recognize it or don’t recognize it. But the real question is what that state will look like afterward.

We know exactly what a Palestinian state would look like afterward because we can see it in action right now. Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, and the Palestinians proceeded to elect Hamas, who then proceeded to kill many of its opponents. The Palestinians, by and large, support Hamas, which turned the Gaza Strip into the world’s most nefarious terror state, filled with hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels, rockets, sophisticated drones, and ammunition?

All of this is symbolic. It doesn’t matter what Ireland says. It doesn’t matter what Spain says. It doesn’t matter what Norway says. I will note that all three of these countries were neutral during World War II on the Nazis.

I guess they missed their opportunity to just openly side with them the first time.

Now they’re going to side with today’s Nazis in Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Islamic Jihad, and all the rest. This is all symbolic because there are 140 countries that currently “recognize a state of Palestine” but there is no state of Palestine because in order to have a state, you actually have to have a government, borders, and citizenship.

There is no Palestinian state that has any of these things. If there were a government in a Palestinian state, it would be the people who rape their supposed “sex slaves” among Israeli women and murder babies. That would be the government.

According to polling data, before October 7, Fatah, which is the military arm of the Palestinian Authority, was barely more popular than Hamas in Judea and Samaria, the so-called West Bank. But today, Hamas would actually defeat Fatah in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. “Fifty-nine percent of all Palestinians think Hamas should rule Gaza. 70 percent were satisfied with the role that Hamas played during the war.”

Even among people who believed before October 7 that Fatah should win, “56 percent believed the person who should lead a Palestinian government is a man named Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences for his role in the murder of Jews during the Second Intifada.”

Again, let’s be clear. It would be a terror government.

What is basically being said is: Go slaughter, kill, rape, and maim Jews — and get a state. That is the logic of Ireland, Norway, and Spain.

When European countries say they recognize a state of Palestine without borders, what they are really recognizing is an attempt to destroy the State of Israel and kill all the Jews living in it because that is the actual desire of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Jon Stewart fashions himself a court jester, but often he’s just a fool.

Consider his bewildering take on cancel culture, which the press often cites with either scare quotes or prefaced by “so-called.”

There’s nothing imaginary about it.

Tell that to Stewart, who in 2021 claimed it was just a myth, a mirage. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

People that talk about cancel culture never seem to shut the f*** up about it…Like, there’s more speech now than ever before. It’s not ‘you can’t say it,’ it’s that when you say it—look, the internet has democratized criticism. What do we do for a living—we talk s***, we criticize, we postulate, we opine, we make jokes, and now other people are having their say. And that’s not cancel culture, that’s relentlessness. We live in a relentless culture. And the system of the internet and all those other things are incentivized to find the pressure points of that and exacerbate it.

Roseanne Barr would like a word. She might be the most infamous cancel culture victim, her career and signature show erased for one racially charged tweet for which she immediately apologized.

Or four rebel comics canceled by a Seattle comedy club for telling the “wrong” jokes.

Or a white male comedian allegedly canceled by his management for being a white male comedian.

Or a conservative comedian allegedly canceled by a comedy club for being a conservative comedian.

Or the jokes never told because comedians censor themselves to avoid cancellation.

Or sitcoms memory holed for blackface-themed gags. Or a beloved episode of “Fawlty Towers” temporarily shelved by the BBC for racist language. The bit in question mocked racism, but never mind.

Both shows and humans get canceled by the mob, and Stewart pretended it didn’t exist.

His talking points had a short shelf life.

Later that same year, Stewart defended fellow comedian Dave Chappelle after cancel culture came for him. Chappelle’s Netflix special “The Closer” featured jokes targeting the trans community, along with a longer bit that paid homage to a late trans comic. His white-hot career and legacy seemed on the verge of collapse.

The media savaged his shtick. Netflix employees picketed their own company. 

Stewart rushed to his pal’s defense.

…. he’s one of my favorite people on the planet and he’s just a good, decent… – you know, if there is any miscommunication, I’m sure that – I love that dude, like as a person.

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Pilot Boy

Stewart thought added context could save Chappelle. He forgot the Barr example.

She has said she went out of her way to hire minority writers on “Roseanne” to improve the show’s diversity. Former “Roseanne” scribe Norm Macdonald backed up that claim. That context couldn’t save her career from cancel culture.

Chappelle’s special could have been canceled by Netflix. Few would have been surprised by that turn of events and imagine the chilling impact it might have had on his fellow comedians.

Gosh, if the comedy GOAT like Chappelle can be canceled, what about his peers?

Shockingly, Netflix stood tall and defended the comedian.

Cancel culture was real then. It’s real now. Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker can tell us all about it, from the Change.org petition demanding the team fire him for his pro-Catholic views to sports scribes echoing those demands.

Stewart picked an odd time to re-engage with the cancel culture conversation. He did it, of course, to smite Donald Trump and the Right.

Screenshot: The Daily Show/YouTube.

The former and current “Daily Show” host once dabbled in bipartisan yuks. Now, those moments are increasingly rare. He’s more akin to the Colbert School of Comedy. Propaganda, not satire.

Case in point: He brought up Butker’s imbroglio to once again claim cancel culture is about accountability, not punishment. Why a Catholic must be held accountable for sharing Catholic beliefs at a Catholic college wasn’t cited in his rant.

He once again summoned his favorite strawman, that we’re “surrounded by and inundated with more speech than has ever existed in the history of communication” to deny cancel culture’s existence. Yes, but that doesn’t negate the chilling effects cancel culture has on both comedy and the culture at large.

He doubled down, saying cancel culture doesn’t exist. It’s just a cudgel wielded by the Right.

Because the idea that there is an all-pervasive, all-powerful threat to free speech called ‘cancel culture’ has become a central tenet of modern conservatism. They celebrate their being silenced at conferences. They celebrate their being silenced on podcasts and streaming outlets. They celebrate their being silenced with over 700 book titles about ‘being canceled’. Why are there so many of these f***ing books?

Stewart pivoted to Orange Man Bad to placate the show’s clapping seals. Turns out the real cancel culture is happening on the Right, and it’s all Trump’s fault.

Anyone who dares speak out against him, or refuses to buy into Trump’s stolen election claims, you’ll lose your job like Liz Cheney or countless others…In fact, everything the right says cancel culture does to them is actually being done by MAGA.

Countless others? How are political realities the same as cancel culture? Wasn’t Cheney’s plight the most extreme example of a politician betraying her own party over and again and being voted out of office?

It’s deflection. It’s insincere. And it ignores the obvious truth. Cancel culture is a product of the Left.

Why would Stewart deny it? Because he’s felt the Left’s wrath more than once, and he knows he better steer clear of it if he still wants to keep peddling jokes on fancy TV shows.

In 2021 Stewart enraged the Left by saying, on “The Late Show” no less, that COVID likely came from the lab where the virus originated. He was shocked by the fallout from that comic rant.

My bigger problem with that was I thought it was a pretty good bit that expressed kind of how I felt, and the two things that came out of it were I’m racist against Asian people, and how dare I align myself with the alt-right.

Sounds not-so-MAGA like.

More recently, he returned to “The Daily Show” and admitted that President Joe Biden is old, frail, and far from a strong candidate for re-election. The backlash from the Left was ferocious.

He’s been Colbert-like on the show ever since. That’s the best way to keep cancel culture off your back, and he knows it.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.