In his stand-up How to Save Gaza, Sammy Obeid mixes absurd humor and political satire. He jokes about privilege, DoorDash mishaps, and a mistaken “leave inside” delivery that becomes a running gag about comfort and safety. Shifting from comedy to reflection, he acknowledges his Palestinian roots and anger over Gaza’s suffering, insisting his rage targets only politicians. Obeid imagines a darkly comic solution—sending politicians to Gaza disguised as Arabs, or mobilizing a billion people to DoorDash food there. Beneath the jokes lies a plea for empathy, creativity, and global awareness through laughter rather than despair.
Premiered October 14, 2025
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Sammy Obeid: How to save Gaza | Full transcript
Good. Good. You guys are good clappers. Not really laughers, but I like it. Take your claps. Are you okay? You’re over there. I keep looking over. You look—you look very sad. You’re doing all right? Okay. It’s very awkward. Oh, it’s an awkward angle. Is that what it is? Oh, I keep looking at you and that makes it awkward. Yikes. So, you want me to not notice your depression? Like, it’s glaring at me. You’re right there. I mean, you have to understand, you know, I don’t expect you to be happy when I’m here. I mean, it’s nice. It’s nice to know that I show up, you know, across half the world and you’re like, “Yeah, this is cool,” you know, but even if you come to the show like this, you know, maybe I can help.
But after five minutes of jokes and I look over still like this, I’m like, “I don’t fucking know what to do anymore. Maybe acknowledge it.” And then if I acknowledge it, like, why are you acknowledging it? Well, I don’t know what to do. I really don’t know what to do at this point.
But if you’ve been following my stand-up for years, you know I don’t have one common thing. I just—I like to do difficult subjects such as triangles, or Palestine of course, these difficult subjects. And the reason I’m able to do these difficult subjects is because I’m very aware that I come from a place of privilege.
Okay, I live in what’s called the first world. I didn’t—I didn’t know we were numbering them, but you know, I had a great childhood. Both my parents loved me. I was the favorite. You know, I grew up in apartheid, but on the good side, you know what I mean? So, I know what it’s like.
And so, I’m aware. I approach difficult subjects coming from a place of privilege. I’m aware that I’m privileged because I thought about it this year. I thought about it very carefully. I thought about what was the biggest adversity that I’ve faced personally this year. And it’s very embarrassing.
It was a night that I ordered DoorDash. I know this sounds horrible already. I’m aware. You guys know what DoorDash is. It’s a food delivery service. I like DoorDash because the people who bring you the food—they call them dashers. And so it’s like they’re dashing it towards you. Like, it just feels like they’re in a rush to deliver you the food like the king that you are.
And so this night I was very hungry. So I ordered a burrito. I’m not sure if they have those in Australia yet, but it’s basically food wrapped inside of food. I ordered that for my tummy. And just a few minutes after ordering it, I thought, you know, I kind of want something sweet. So I’m going to order some ice cream.
That’s—I’m living like the favorite child every day. You know, back in the day, I’d be like, “Mom, can I have ice cream?” She’d be like, “Yes, you’re the favorite.” And now I treat DoorDash the same way. I’m like, “DoorDash, can I get ice cream?” They’re like, “Yes, just send us more money.”
And so, I ordered another order. I ordered ice cream. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the luxury of ordering two separate orders on one of these food apps. But two different individuals will bring you food from two different locations at statistically two different times. But on this very night, my two dashers arrived at the exact same time—and it was so embarrassing.
Oh my god, it was so awkward. I was like, “Oh my god, they see each other. It’s so bad.” They clocked each other like, “You’re here for this guy? He wants that and this? Oh my god, what a pig. He’s probably going to eat with his hands too.” And they just set it on my doormat in disgust like, “Let’s get out of here.”
And then I waited for them to leave, watching them through the curtain. Then I slithered out, got my two bags, and went inside. And I just ate them really quickly. Like, I punched them. That’s how I eat.
Then that was the hardest night I had all year. That’s the level of privilege I’m coming from. Just letting you know.
And okay. Well, there was a night where my house got broken into. Forgot about that one. Uh, and I know my house got broken into ‘cause I was inside, which I would argue is the worst time to be in your house. Some people are like, “That’s the best time because you can defend your home.” Like, that’s assuming that I’m a hero, which I am not.
So, I was sitting on my couch one night, which is kind of near the front door, and I hear a knock. Now, when someone knocks on the front door, it can only mean one of two things. Either they’re trying to sell you something or kill you. Okay? And I was not interested in either of those things that night.
Okay. So when somebody knocks on my door, my strategy is to just freeze… so that the person can’t even hear my motion. ‘Cause we’ve all knocked on someone’s door, rang the doorbell. You can tell when someone’s in there. You can just hear their aura. You’re like, “I know this motherfucker’s home.” So my thing is just like remove all traceable forms of life. Power down. Power down. And just wait for the knocking to stop.
And they knock again. And I’m like, “This will pass.” Knock again. All right. Three knocks it is. Knock again. Getting greedy there, buddy. There’s a pause. I’m like, “Ah, they’re leaving.” And then they twist the doorknob. Oh no. They’re testing to see if the door’s open because nobody else lives here. So I’m just like, “Uh, hold on. Hold on. Don’t make any noise.”
They twist it around again very aggressively. I’m like, “Oh, they really want to get inside.” Then it occurred to me, like, at what point am I going to defend my home? ‘Cause I—I really don’t think I’m going to. I really thought about it. I was like, if this person breaks into my house, I’m just going to pretend like I’m a statue.
[Laughter]
So if they come in, they’re like, “Well, that’s a real realistic-looking statue. Where’d he get it?” you know? Or they would know that it was me and they would see that I was scared so they would at least play along with the game. Like, “Whoa, that’s a cool statue. I’m going to go rob the place.” It’s like improv, you know?
So, I’m like, “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Twist the doorknob. Then, this person starts throwing their body weight into the door. Don’t shake. Don’t shake. Motion. Motion. They do it again. And I’m actually really impressed because I can stand pretty still and I’m like trying not to shake or make any motion. I’m trying to stabilize. Stabilize.
They do it again and then my phone goes ding. I was like—I looked at my phone and I kid you not, it actually was good timing because it just so happens 20 minutes prior I ordered DoorDash and my phone is notifying me that my Dasher was arriving and I was like, “Thank God, a hero.” I looked at my phone. His name was Muhammad, too. I was overjoyed. It said, “Muhammad has arrived.” I was like, “Peace be upon him.”
I gave five stars right away. I was like, “You know what to do, buddy.” And then I see the GPS, the dot approaching the house. I’m like, “Mom’s going to save me. He’s going to save me.” He always does.
And then I’m hearing this guy throwing his body weight against the door. I’m like, “Muhammad, do the right thing. Do it.” And then I see the dot approaching the door—throwing the body weight against the—and then I see him walking away. I’m like, “No, Muhammad, no. Where are you going?” He’s like, “This is not my business.” He’s like, “This is just weird.”
And then I see him walking off further and I start to cry. Like, no. And then the guy throws the body weight against the door. Now I’m like freaking out again. And then I see the dot start to move back towards the door. I’m like, “Okay, he’s changed his mind.” He’s like, “I cannot stand for this injustice.”
And my mind’s like making it political. I’m like, “Thank God for immigrants.” You know what I mean? Like, you know, good conscience, you know, doing the jobs that us citizens don’t want to do, like defend our own homes, right? So I’m like, “You go, Muhammad. Can I give him five stars again? I don’t know.”
And then I see him approach the door. Guy’s still throwing the body weight. I’m like, “Muhammad, are you just watching?” And then he throws the body weight even harder this time. Like, “Muhammad, are you helping? Are you, like, throwing this guy against the door?” And he just bounces back like, “I’m helping this guy out.” I’m like, “What is going on?”
And then it dawned on me. There’s a delay on this app. So, this has just been Muhammad the whole time. I look, I’m like, that’s his car right there. And that’s him. Oh my god. Why is my Dasher trying to break into my house? Like, was he like, “I’m going to leave this food. This house looks really nice. Might as well give a little, take a little.”
My politics instantly changed. I’m like, “Immigrants—they were right!” You know, I’m like, “What do I do? What do I do?” And I’m like—now the adrenaline’s kicking. I’m like, “You got to do something. Do something. Do something. Save your home.” And I look a little closely and I’m like, “He looks kind of like a small guy. I could probably take him,” you know?
So I open the door. I’m like, “Muhammad, what’s the deal, man?” And he looks at me. He’s like, “I’m so sorry. It says to leave inside.”
Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. Oh my god, I put “leave inside” on the directions. That was a typo. I meant to put “leave outside” like a normal person, but I think maybe I made a typo and then autocorrect changed it to “inside.” You know, autocorrect. These are the kinds of struggles that I have.
Autocorrect, really. And I kind of like took a moment to laugh at it. And I was like, “Man, I really appreciate you trying to get inside,” you know, because he’s like, you just had to leave inside. He has to follow the directions. I’m like, “That’s awesome, man. But, like, how far were you going to go?” You know, like, you nearly broke down the door.
He’s like, “Yeah, my right side hurts.” I’m like, “You—I mean, definitely going to tip you for this one.”
But like, I understand why he did that because, you know, these people who deliver food on the apps—I don’t know if anybody here does it—but like, you have to follow the directions because people get upset when you don’t follow the directions to a T. Like, you know, there’s been some Karen out there who’s like, “He didn’t leave it on the right corner of the doormat counterclockwise like I asked. One star.”
So, now these dashers are traumatized. You know that somebody’s not going to get upset because they didn’t follow the directions. So Muhammad was like, “He said leave inside. I’m just going to get inside of his house by any means necessary.” They got to respect that hustle.
So, you know, I gave him five stars again. Gave him a tip and sent him on his way. And then, um, and then I ate my burrito again. I went—I was like—and the burrito was so good I completely forgot to change the directions on my app.
So, I totally just left it saying “leave inside” for another two weeks. And I didn’t realize this until two weeks later when I was back home again. And this night I was also very hungry. And so I ordered two dashers again.
Okay. Sorry. Sorry. And the two dashers came at the same time again. I don’t know if it’s me. I’m just attracting like these two-for-one scenarios. But they came at the exact same time. And I didn’t realize it. And I didn’t realize that I hadn’t changed the app until I’m sitting on my couch and then I hear someone banging on the door and the window at the same time.
These guys were trying to break into my house from two different entry ports. And I kind of just like looked out the window just to be like, “Oh, they’re doing a good job.” Like they even started working together like, “How are we going to get in this nice house? What are we going to do? Should we go around the back gate? You know, is there any—should I lift you on the roof? We can Santa Claus that down the chimney.” Like, they were working together. It was actually really cool, you know?
But I had to go out there and break it. I’m like, “Sorry, guys. Muhammad. Muhammad. It was a complete mistake. Uh, thank you for the food. Peace be upon y’all. And uh, have a nice day.”
And um, and after that I changed it back to “leave outside” and I’ve had no adversity since.
So that’s where I’m at. I’m just letting you know so you know where I come from personally. Okay. And this is all just to say I’m aware that I don’t have a real struggle in my life. And that’s why it’s very easy for me to address obvious difficult topics and address people who are enduring real suffering because I know what real suffering looks like. I don’t know what it feels like, but I know what it looks like. I see people suffering in the world and I have to say something about it.
A lot of you know I’m Palestinian, okay? People ask me like, “I see what you’re going through. I know you care so much about people in Palestine because you’re Palestinian.” To be honest, I don’t even think about being Palestinian when I see what they’re going through. I just see human suffering. That’s all it is. I just literally see—I don’t think that if I was any other race or nationality that I would see it any differently. I see people suffering.
And I’ll be honest, for the last two years, I’ve been cycling between sadness, frustration, and pure rage. And I’m going to admit, at this point in time, I’m pretty locked into pure rage. I’m just in there. I make sure that my rage is never directed towards my fellow people around me who are trying also to be good people. My rage is not directed towards anyone other than my politicians. That’s it. And probably yours, too. My politicians and yours—I don’t know your politicians personally, but I imagine they’re all scumbags as well. And so I don’t even need to know their names and I hate them. Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that beautiful? Yes. But my hate is exclusively for politicians. That’s it.
And now as a public figure, I can’t be up here advocating for violence against any politician. Y’all can do what you want, but I cannot be doing this. I need to be more creative about what I say. My bigger goal right now is I’m really trying to build my reach and my following so that I can get politicians to do my podcast because that’s how much of losers these politicians are. They’re like, “Oh, I bet I can do this podcast, get some votes.” That’s what I’m trying to do.
My goal really is to get big enough to the point where I can invite my whole congress to my house. Okay? I’ll have to get a bigger house, but I’m going to invite them all over. Tell them it’s for content. We’ll order DoorDash. And then I’m going to tell them that we’re doing a makeover. So it’s makeover time. They’re like, “Yay.” Then I’m going to get a bunch of hair stylists and makeup artists and we’re going to put all of my politicians in what I call Arab face. Yeah. It’s a thing. I just made it up. But we’re going to give them Arab face. We’re going to give them a nice bronze brown. Put hair where it doesn’t belong. Put all the women in hijab like Zoran wants. I’m just kidding. But get them like indistinguishably Arab—you can’t even tell the difference between them and people in the Arab world. We’re getting them all arabbed up and we’re going to get them in an Arab plane. A plane, but it’s like they’re really Arab looking. And then we’re going to fly them out, air drop them directly into Gaza and watch them figure it out. Yep. And we’re going to call it Apac Island. Can’t you survive without your lunch money? It’ll be just like Love Island. You can vote them off at that point. I already got the poster. It’s just a picture of John Fetterman and AOC: “Is it a genocide now?” We got to get creative. It is the time to get creative because that’s pretty much all we have left.
All of the basics that we’re doing are amazing. Speaking up, protesting, contacting your soulless politicians—these are all important things and we got to keep doing them, but we have to be doing something else on top. It has to be creative. It has to be something that nobody’s ever tried or thought of. I don’t claim to have the solution. I don’t claim to have the idea, but hopefully my idea will inspire.
Here’s what I have right now. This solution requires a lot of people. We can’t just do this with a hundred people. We can’t do it with a thousand or ten thousand. We need like one billion people. If we can get one billion people to do something, I know we can end the genocide in Gaza tonight. One billion people. I know you’re like, “How are we going to coordinate with one billion people? I can’t even get my family of four to go to the same restaurant.” I know.
So here’s my idea. If we can just get one billion people in the world to all at the same time agree to get on their phone and order DoorDash directly to Gaza and just put “leave inside.” These dashers will tear down the walls, crawl through the tunnels, parachute that food in, get their five stars, get fuck out. You’ll just see “Muhammad’s on the way. Muhammad’s on the way. Muhammad’s on the way.” And let’s face it, it’ll be good for the economy.
Thank you so much. You guys are amazing. I love you.
[Applause]
