Petition Seeks to Ban Joan Rivers in Britain Over Gaza

Thousands of people sign a petition to halt Joan Rivers’ Britain tour after she said "they started it" when asked about Gaza.

Thousands of people have signed a petition to halt American television host Joan Rivers’ upcoming tour in Britain after her remarks about the crisis in Gaza, Al Arabiya reports.

According to the report, the petition was created by Dipu Ahad, a Labour councilor from Newcastle, and has been signed by more than 20,000 people so far.

The petition urges event organizers to cancel all of Rivers’ upcoming UK tour dates.

Rivers made headlines when she said “Palestinians deserve to be dead” after she was approached by a reporter working for U.S. entertainment website TMZ asking her opinion on the crisis in Gaza.

“They started it. We now don’t count who’s dead. You’re dead, you deserve to be dead... Don’t you dare make me feel sad about that... You don’t get out, then you know you’re an idiot,” Rivers said, according to Al Arabiya.

Ahad said that Rivers was “not welcome in Britain.”

The venue’s managing director, Robert Sanderson, told the Nottingham Post in response to the petition, “Our contract is not with Joan Rivers but with the company promoting her tour in the UK, Pete Wilson @ 3A. Whatever our personal opinion, we have no legal grounds as things stand for terminating our contract with the company promoting the show.”

Rivers is just one of several celebrities who have expressed support for Israel in the conflict.

Dean Cain, the actor best known for his role as Superman on ABC Television, said last week that Israel, like the United States, is a democracy that is threatened by terrorists, and deserves America's wholehearted supported.

"Clearly Hamas are terrorists," Cain said. "And if rockets were being fired from Mexico into my home town of San Diego, Americans wouldn't accept that for a minute, we'd be taking over that part of Mexico and making it part of California."

Other pop culture stars have likewise come down on Israel's side. Comedian and talk show host Howard Stern praised Israel as "the only democracy over there, it's the only friend we have who's willing to fight and stand up for what's right…[In Gaza,] they elected terrorists to run their country."

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