BRENDAN O’NEILL: Jerry Seinfeld and the dark truth about ‘Free Palestine.’

“Can we get a ‘Free Palestine’?” the streamer asked as he shoved his mic towards Seinfeld’s mouth. Seinfeld smirked. He held his tongue. No “Free Palestine” passed his lips.

It gets better. He then proceeded to shut down his chirpy interrogator with three words. “It doesn’t exist”, he said. He was talking about Palestine. Cue fury from the Gazaholics. This was “racist rhetoric”, cried the cranks at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Oh keep your burqas on. He wasn’t being racist – he was showing the world that even in an age of crushing conformity it is possible to stand your ground.

There was something heroic in Seinfeld’s smiling refusal to speak on command. By resisting the pressure to parrot the slogans of the self-righteous, he struck a blow for freedom of conscience. He resisted the trap of compelled speech, preferring the company of his own supposedly blasphemous thoughts. What a relief to discover there are celebrities out there who decline to bow to the passing fads of correct-think.

The backlash over his Palestine heresy was fast and furious. Social media is awash with Jerry hate. “Racist,” “apartheid lover,” “psycho” – those barbs and others have been hurled his way. Mehdi Hasan called him a “disgusting and proud racist” and said he will never again watch an episode of Seinfeld. I bet Jerry’s gutted. Perhaps he’ll take comfort in the millions of dollars he still rakes in from Seinfeld every year, courtesy of viewers who aren’t big babies and don’t switch off TV shows in a pique of infantile rage when they discover they disagree with the people who made them.

To be fair, if anyone knows a show about nothing when he sees one, it’s Jerry Seinfeld.