Bill Maher (AP/Frank Micelotta/Invision) (AP/Frank Micelotta/Invision)
Bill Maher

Popular talk show host berates younger critics of Israel who fail to learn about the real issues: ‘You can’t learn history from Instagram.’

By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel

The host of HBO’s Real Time, Bill Maher, defended Israel during his show on Saturday, calling out liberal media for its one-sided reporting and lambasting critics – especially young people – who don’t bother to learn any history before attacking the Jewish state.

Maher said that watching the coverage of the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas was driving him crazy because of the one-sided anti-Israel position of the media.

“It was frustrating to me because there was no one on liberal media to defend Israel. Really, we’ve become this country now where we’re kind of one-sided on this issue,” Maher said.

“I don’t think kids understand. And when I say kids, I mean the younger generations – you you can’t learn history from Instagram,” Maher said, winning a burst of applause from the studio audience. “It’s just not enough space.”

“This is another thing I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks, words like ‘occupiers’ and ‘colonizers’ and ‘apartheid,’ which I don’t think people understand the history there,” Maher said, then gave viewers a short history lesson.

“The Jews have been in that area of the world since about 1,200 B.C. way before the first Muslim or Arab walked the Earth … Jerusalem was their capital,” said Maher, who was raised as a Catholic. “So if it’s just about who got there first, it’s not even close. There have been a continuous Jewish presence. The Jews were the ones who were occupied by everybody. The Romans took over at some point and then the Persians and the Byzantines and then the Ottomans.”

“Beginning in the 19th century they started to return to Palestine, which was never an Arab country. There was never a country called Palestine that was a distinct Arab country,” Maher pointed out. “And yes, there was a problem there because there was two people who wanted to share the land, which is why the UN in 1947 said, OK, we’re going to partition it.”

Maher criticized the Palestinians for repeatedly rejected the two state solution.

“The two-state solution has been on the table a number of times. There could be an Arab capital in East Jerusalem now if Yasser Arafat had accepted that in 2003. He did not,” Maher said.

“I mean, they have rejected this and went to war time and time again,” he continued. “And, you know, as far as Gaza goes, it’s amazing to me that the progressives think that they’re being progressive by taking that side of it, the Bella Hadids of the world, these influencers.”

“I just want to say in February of this year, a Hamas court ruled that an unmarried woman cannot travel in Gaza without the permission of a male guardian. Really? That’s where the progressives are? Bella Hadid and her friends would run screaming to Tel Aviv if they had to live in Gaza for one day,” Maher said.

Maher rejected any notion that Hadid was simply supporting human rights of Gazans.

“‘From the river to the sea Palestine will be free,’ is I think what she (Hadid) chanted with people. That is a PLO slogan that means …. that there will be no more Israel.”

“The Israelis, they have made mistakes, but it’s a [so called] ‘apartheid’ state because they keep getting attacked!” Maher said. “If they don’t keep a tight lid on this s***, they get killed! That seems like something different!”


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