Comedian and actor Dawn French, famous for her roles in the Vicar of Dibley and French and Saunders, has prompted outrage after she appeared to mock and belittle the suffering of Israel’s October 7 victims.
In a video posted to X, without directly mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Hamas, French can be seen putting on a child-like, cartoonish voice saying: “Yeah but you know they did a bad thing to us”, followed by “yeah, but no” in a more natural voice.
Returning to her cartoonish voice, she says: “But we want that land… Those people aren’t really even people” responding in her normal voice “no”.
French’s video was widely criticised on social media.
Actor Tracey-Ann Oberman, who is Jewish, posted that she was “saddened” by it.
“This mocking voice ‘bad thing’ of October 7 that Dawn (who I revere by the way) appears to be mocking involved the most horrific terrorist attack involving rape, sexual violence, burning alive, child mutilation and taking of civilian hostages.
“Why would Dawn seem to deny that which has affected so many of us personally in the most painful way possible? I can mourn the horrors of the war in Gaza whilst also remembering the horrors of what started it,” she added.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel amounted to the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Over 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 were taken hostage by the Islamist terror organisation. Fifty six are still held captive and around 20 of those are thought to be alive.
Former Scottish Labour MP Tom Harris reacted to the video by saying: “Here's Dawn French doing silly voices to denigrate all those silly Jews who (for some reason) objected to the slaughter, rape and kidnapping of innocent people on 10/7.”
"Honestly, Jews, eh? What are they like?”, he said sarcastically in a post on X.
Another social media user said: “Dawn French sneering at the deadliest single day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was not something I expected. But nothing shocks me anymore, it just saddens.”
Podcaster and YouTuber Andrew Gold commented on the video saying: “This utter lunacy is the result of decades of an insider cult-think celebrity class that truly has no idea how the world works. Their opinions and predictions on everything from Brexit to Trump are not only proven wrong over and over again but verging on unhinged.”
French’s representatives have been contacted for comment.
