The View faced heavy backlash online Tuesday when moderator Whoopi Goldberg apparently “cut off” co-host Sunny Hostin during a serious discussion about Israel and Palestine — only to return after the commercial break to talk to Taylor Swift.
Sunny, 55, highlighted how “the Palestinian people did not choose their government” as she spoke of “illegal occupations” and “illegal settlements.”
But Whoopi, 67, intervened: “I’m going to stop you for a moment.”
Referring to a member of the crew off camera, she continued, “I’m going to stop you because… he’s… we need to take a break.”
Sunny Hostin, 55, was in the middle of a conversation about Palestine when the daytime show suddenly had to go to a commercial break
Joy Behar, 81, (left) listened intently as Sunny, the mother of two, calmly shared her thoughts
Fans were furious to discover the rapid post-break talk about Taylor and the price of her concert tickets, accusing bosses of deciding to ‘change the subject’ because Sunny was ‘willing to speak the truth’.
“So producers told them to go to this fluffy Taylor Swift topic when something is actually happening in the world #TheView (sic),” one person tweeted.
Another said: ‘Sunny is the only one who wants to speak the truth about this and they shut her down with #TheView.’
A third fumed: ‘Wait… so they talked about ONE really important topic?! Suddenly they’ve moved on to fluffy nonsense, like Taylor Swift’s cards?! Grow up ladies!!!!’
A fourth person raged: ‘Who cares what Taylor Swift does?! Go back to news! Important things to worry about!!!!’
Another asked, “So are we just going to ignore how they shut down the conversation about the genocide happening in Palestine? And switched to Taylor Swift ticket sales?’
Fans tuning into The View on Tuesday were unimpressed when moderator Whoopi Goldberg, 67, apparently “cut off” one of her co-hosts
Sunny wanted to remind everyone, including her co-hosts, that the ‘Palestinian people did not choose their government’
Viewers expressed their frustrations online over the decision to take a commercial break
Alyssa Farah Griffin, 34, declared the situation “a terrorist crisis” and said Jews were “not given a chance to mourn” their own people
Other viewers felt that producers should rethink who is on the panel. One wrote, “I think The View should have a balanced co-host for opinions from all sides and positions on various current topics.”
Another urged: ‘@TheView Please bring someone on the show who knows what they are talking about when it comes to the Middle East, especially the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It has been two consecutive weeks of ignorance for a wide audience.’
Israeli authorities say more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel and at least 199 others, including children, have been captured and taken to Gaza by Hamas after the organization launched an attack on Israel on October 7.
During the discussion, Whoopi spoke of “a spike in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia” in the US, while Joy Behar, 81, pointed out that “innocent people always suffer in wars.”
She continued, “It’s heartbreaking what’s going on, but people need to speak out against all of that… all the bigotry, all the anti-Semitism. We can’t be silent, I think there’s a lot of silence at the moment.”
However, Whoopi disagreed, replying, “Look, I don’t think there’s much silence right now. I think people are trying to figure out what to say and how to say it.”
Sunny then spoke up and said, “We are now learning the historical context surrounding the conflict, and I think people have always been very afraid of talking about the conflict and being labeled as anti-Semites.
Former White House aide Alyssa tried to intervene moments before Sunny was ‘cut off’
Mother of three Sara Haines, 46, quoted former President Barack Obama as she spoke
Palestinians search for survivors amid the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on October 24 in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.
‘There has always been racism in this country. This country was unfortunately founded on racism, it was allowed to happen and the people of the country have been anti-Semitic since the beginning of time.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin deemed the situation “a terrorist crisis” and explained: ‘There’s probably HFrom what we hear there are militants in Israel and hostages are still being held.
‘Eall year round at Holocaust Remembrance Day we say: “never again and never again should six million Jews be murdered because of bigotry and the world should remain silent for too long”… that will never be the case again! There is a duty.
“My Jewish friends had to watch as people blamed them for the slaughter of innocent Jews while the bodies were still warm, while they still mourned their loss.”
Alyssa continued, “They didn’t get a chance to mourn what happened to the more than a thousand murdered Jews. They are one of the few population groups on earth whose right to exist is constantly questioned.’
When co-host Sara Haines, 46, mentioned the fact that “previous Israeli governments made meaningful efforts to resolve the dispute” but that efforts were “ultimately rejected time and time again,” Sunny was happy to let her speak again .
“What I would like to remind everyone is that, if you look at your history, Hamas has not had free democratic elections since 2005, and therefore the Palestinian people have not elected their government….”