Virulent antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7 was likened to a “volcano” by HBO’s Bill Maher as his scathing political commentary trampled on leftist hate.
“…you’re the ones with the tiki torches now!”
(Video: Real Time with Bill Maher)
Friday, with a lineup of guests that included CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, political scientist Ian Bremmer, and Minnesota congressman turned presidential hopeful Rep. Dean Phillips (D), the host of “Real Time” didn’t hold back as he wondered, “What do you make of this level of just gut-wrenching antisemitism?”
Speaking to the exponential rise in incidents, marked especially on college campuses across the nation since Hamas had struck Israel with a terror attack slaughtering more than 1,400 men, women and children, Maher stated, “I must admit, I don’t think of myself as a naive person and I’ve been surprised. It was like a volcano that blew.”
“I mean, just the people in the United States with banner- ‘F*ck Israel!’ you know, the ‘Any means necessary!’ I just, I don’t know where this comes from,” he said. “I guess it’s ancient. Obviously, the hatred of the Jews goes way back. But I was taken aback by this.”
Interjecting, Bremmer suggested, “You can’t tell me you don’t think social media has made it much worse.”
“So you think that’s the answer?” Maher posited as he considered the realities. “Because it’s gotta be something about the Jews themselves because there are other people around the world who are oppressed. There are other ‘colonized’ places, not that Israel ‘colonized’ anything, but why this one place, why does this arouse — especially among young people?”
“I mean, the young people who hated Trump because he wouldn’t condemn the people with the tiki torches talking about Jews — you’re the ones with the tiki torches now!” exclaimed the host.
The reference was not the first time that Maher had likened atrocities committed in Israel to then-President Donald Trump’s remarks made regarding an Aug. 2017 protest in Charlottesville, Virginia where the commander-in-chief had made note of “very fine people on both sides.”
“It was a difficult week, very depressing week, I’m sure you saw Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, broke into Israel, killed over 1,300 people: men, women and children, and then the college kids in America went full Trump and said, there’s very fine people on both sides,” the comedian had quipped less than one week after the attack. “What is going on? Thirty-four Harvard associations, student associations, signed a letter that basically threw their lot in with the killers.”
Maher says ‘college kids in America went full Trump’ after Hamas attack: ‘Very fine people on both sides’ https://t.co/1AJGBrwC24 via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) October 14, 2023
The host’s slam of leftist activists, which had manifested at some schools as more than just anti-Israel sentiments, with at least one case of violent threats made to “shoot up” Jewish peers at Cornell University allegedly made by a student who warned “jihad is coming,” was met by Zakaria attempting to malign Christians for the rise in antisemitism, rather than support for the Islamists that perpetrated the evil in Israel.
Maher laughed off the history of Christians and Jews as not on the minds of college kids before Bremmer furthered his point about social media, and the host advanced his own position that pro-Hamas sympathies were just the latest virtue-signal from a collective of uneducated, self-indulgent and self-described “social justice warriors.”
“They don’t want to learn anything…They want to have a cause. It’s not about Israel, it’s about this cause, the Palestinians. Like I said, there’s many people around the world who could have similar causes…This is the one that they latch onto,” expressed Maher. “They don’t learn anything about the history of the region or who’s right and who’s wrong and where they’d be more comfortable.”
“Can you imagine how these people would feel if they had to move to Gaza,” he added, “how disruptive their life would be?”
Maher’s views coincided with Fox News host Greg Gutfeld’s remarks Friday on “The Five” wherein he pointed out the inherent problem with corporate media’s own lack of understanding of the issues in reporting on matters like the Middle East and how it was important to “keep it simple” for the viewers.
“Do not let the media confuse or complicate what is a very, very simple story: A despicable act took place that requires decisive action,” he explained after asserting of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah over threats of joining the fight with Hamas, “I don’t feel that anybody needs to hear from him, whether it’s news or not. Kill the piece of sh*t.”
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Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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