Bill Maher has a longstanding love-hate relationship with Conservatives. Many of his commentaries cross the line but sometimes when he’s right he’s spot on. Most importantly for this progressive show-host, he doesn’t give any quarter to the political correctness mob. Maher has been noticed in recent years as a bastion against ‘wokeness,’ calling it out with brutal clarity on a regular basis. He’s also stalwartly pro-Israel, and doesn’t mince words when it comes to the facts of radical Islamic terrorism. His nuanced position has garnered him many enemies on the Left.
His show Real Time on HBO broadcast the topic of the Israel-Hamas conflict two weeks ago, and Maher wasn’t accepting any of the normal leftist anti-Israel, pro-Hamas shenanigans. His guests were NYT opinion writer Nicholas Kristof and James Carville, with whom he was discussing the recent Gaza conflict, which by then had already been halted by a ceasefire. Kristof was offering the usual lines about how Israel was deserving of criticism for conducting airstrikes, lines which Maher continued to slap down one at a time. Maher noted that there were no clear instances of war crimes on Israel’s part, because in conflict of this sort, people die and collateral damage is inevitable. He also pointed out that Hamas was responsible for firing over 4,000 rockets into Israel’s populous zones, how else should Israel have responded to that? The collateral damage of Israel’s airstrikes was a consequence of Hamas’s policy of placing their military installations inside of dense civilian areas, Maher explained.
Maher also took on the ‘apartheid state’ argument, shredding it to pieces. He noted that the state of Israel has many Arab-Israelis who are allowed to vote, serve with the military, and have representation in the Knesset. A far cry from Cape Town’s situation where a minority of foreign Europeans controlled all aspects of life for a majority of black inhabitants. He added that the Jews had lived in the region for thousands of years, making the idea that they are foreign occupiers ridiculous. The Jews have lived in the region in and near Gaza under occupation of the Babylonians, Byzantines, Persians, Romans, Turks, etc. The history is completely lost and never mentioned by anti-Israeli pundits and social media influencers.
Maher gets a few things wrong, but he gets a good deal of key issues right. He continuously agitates the left-wing, attacking their radical nonsense when the facts are too clear to ignore.
Author: Gertrude Brock
