CNBC World billed Sir Bob Geldof, member of the Irish ‘70s band “The Boomtown Rats,” an entrepreneur, author, and activist “continuing to use his voice for good.” CNBC sat down to speak with him at the Young World Summit for the “next generation of leaders,” which aired on Jan. 23, 2026, and on subsequent replays thereafter. Geldof, who has one Jewish grandparent, had previously been bestowed an honorary doctoral degree from Ben-Gurion University, during which time he called for both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to expand their minds. Why then, when the CNBC host explained Geldof was there “to talk about delivering lasting peace” and “supporting young peace builders,” did Geldof call the Jews’ proper to self-determination of their ancestral homeland a “gift” the Jews had been fortunate to be given?
Sitting down with Geldof, the CNBC host raised the conflicts within the Middle East and in Ukraine as among the many “going on in the world right now” and requested Geldof what he wished to see leaders doing. Geldof had harsh phrases for Vladimir Putin, stating, “I want to see thugs [ ] like Putin chastened. I want to see him beaten.”
He then pivoted and described what was occurring in Gaza as each “appalling” and “sickening,” and instructed the CNBC host that “we are sort of compromised by our insistence upon the right of the State of Israel to exist.” While including he “wholeheartedly goes along with [Israel’s right to exist],” he described Israel as “a great moral gift that has been squandered by the activity there.”
The “activity” Geldof refers to, in fact, is Israel’s prosecution of the warfare in Gaza, which was began by Hamas when it invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 individuals, injuring many extra, and kidnapping greater than 250. What precisely did Geldof imply when he mentioned Israel was “a . . . gift that has been squandered?” CNBC didn’t ask him; as an alternative, it simply let the assertion hold.
Have different nations engaged in “activity” that squandered “gifts” in Geldof’s opinion? CNBC had apparently run out of curiosity, because it additionally didn’t ask Geldof this query. Of all the opposite conflict-ridden nations on the earth – such because the Russia-Ukraine warfare, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, or Iran, significantly given the horrific stories of 1000’s lifeless by the hands of a murderous regime in the previous couple of weeks – why did Geldof recommend the one and solely Jewish State was a reward that had been squandered? CNBC forgot what it meant to interact in an interview; it didn’t ask.
Geldof’s western lenses apparently made him really feel uniquely certified to find out that Jewish rights should not truly rights, however mere “gifts.” The similar perspective emboldened him to dictate when Israel ought to have moved on from the occasions of Oct. 7, 2023.
In late July 2025, at which period Hamas nonetheless held 50 hostages in Gaza, Geldof described Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, occasions as “disgusting, barbarous and murderous,” but additionally mentioned the Israeli Prime Minister’s rhetoric, authorities’s insurance policies and IDF actions might not be “blame[d]” on Oct. 7, admonishing Israelis that “[they] are way, way past that now.” Geldof’s proposed resolution again in July 2025? A cartoonish, oversimplified one which ignored the novel ideology and ambitions of Hamas: “The two state solution . . . and to just f**cking stop killing people.”
When an Israeli authorities spokesperson claimed there was no famine attributable to Israel and that Hamas engineered a artifical meals scarcity, Geldof accused Israeli authorities of mendacity. He additionally slammed it as “a false equivalence” when it was instructed that Israelis don’t see a lot criticism from him of Hamas. Geldof then made wildly outrageous claims, amongst them that both 1,000 youngsters or 1,000 individuals had died of hunger to this point that month, as of late July 2025. Sky News famous that in line with Hamas in late July 2025, 127 had died in complete from malnutrition for the reason that starting of the warfare.
If Geldof spewed propaganda extra abhorrent than former Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida, it’s no surprise he claimed Israel was a “great moral gift.” Such characterization fully erases the blood, sweat and tears Jews endured of their quest to return to their historic homeland and construct a trendy state there; it additionally flatly ignores Jewish human rights. It additional begs sure questions by no means requested by CNBC. Does Geldof deem the suitable of Jews to train self-determination of their ancestral homeland a “gift” that would solely have been bestowed upon them by others? In the identical vein, did he imagine it merely a “gift” to have one place on the earth the place Jewish refugees might go after the Holocaust, or the place roughly three-quarters of a million Jews from the Arab world might flee to flee anti-Jewish sentiment, or following pogroms such because the Farhud in Baghdad?
If Geldof believes the creation of the State of Israel to be a “gift that has been squandered,” we look forward to CNBC asking Geldof at least two more questions: (1) whether he knows why the Palestinians rejected a similar, albeit larger “gift” in 1947 which might have created the two-state resolution Geldof champions, and (2) whether or not Geldof believes the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was additionally a reward to Palestinians that has been squandered.
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