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’ right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland a “gift” the Jews were lucky to be given?
Sitting down with Geldof, the CNBC host raised the conflicts in the Middle East and in Ukraine as some of the many “going on in the world right now” and asked Geldof what he wanted to see leaders doing. Geldof had harsh words 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 happening in Gaza as both “appalling” and “sickening,” and told the CNBC host that “we are sort of compromised by our insistence upon the right of the State of Israel to exist.” While adding 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, of course, is Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, which was started by Hamas when it invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 people, injuring many more, and kidnapping more than 250. What exactly did Geldof mean when he said Israel was “a . . . gift that has been squandered?” CNBC did not ask him; instead, it just let the statement hang.
Have other countries engaged in “activity” that squandered “gifts” in Geldof’s opinion? CNBC had apparently run out of curiosity, as it also did not ask Geldof this question. Of all the other conflict-ridden countries in the world – such as the Russia-Ukraine war, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, or Iran, particularly given the horrific reports of thousands dead at the hands of a murderous regime in the last few weeks – why did Geldof suggest the one and only Jewish State was a gift that had been squandered? CNBC forgot what it meant to engage in an interview; it did not ask.
Geldof’s western lenses apparently made him feel uniquely qualified to determine that Jewish rights are not actually rights, but mere “gifts.” The same perspective emboldened him to dictate when Israel should have moved on from the events of Oct. 7, 2023.
In late July 2025, at which time Hamas still held 50 hostages in Gaza, Geldof described Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, events as “disgusting, barbarous and murderous,” but also said the Israeli Prime Minister’s rhetoric, government’s policies and IDF actions could no longer be “blame[d]” on Oct. 7, admonishing Israelis that “[they] are way, way past that now.” Geldof’s proposed solution back in July 2025? A cartoonish, oversimplified one that ignored the radical ideology and ambitions of Hamas: “The two state solution . . . and to just f**cking stop killing people.”
When an Israeli government spokesperson claimed there was no famine caused by Israel and that Hamas engineered a manmade food shortage, Geldof accused Israeli authorities of lying. He also slammed it as “a false equivalence” when it was suggested that Israelis don’t see much criticism from him of Hamas. Geldof then made wildly outrageous claims, among them that either 1,000 children or 1,000 people had died of starvation so far that month, as of late July 2025. Sky News noted that according to Hamas in late July 2025, 127 had died in total from malnutrition since the beginning of the war.
If Geldof spewed propaganda more abhorrent than former Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida, it is no wonder he claimed Israel was a “great moral gift.” Such characterization completely erases the blood, sweat and tears Jews endured in their quest to return to their ancient homeland and build a modern state there; it also flatly ignores Jewish human rights. It further begs certain questions never asked by CNBC. Does Geldof deem the right of Jews to exercise self-determination in their ancestral homeland a “gift” that could only have been bestowed upon them by others? In the same vein, did he believe it merely a “gift” to have one place in the world where Jewish refugees could go after the Holocaust, or where approximately three-quarters of a million Jews from the Arab world could flee to escape anti-Jewish sentiment, or following pogroms such as 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 would have created the two-state solution Geldof champions, and (2) whether Geldof believes the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was also a gift to Palestinians that has been squandered.