Bill Maher slammed pro-Palestine extremists peddling the ‘myth’ that Israel could be wiped out in the war with Hamas, arguing that over the course of history, ‘things change.’
Inflammatory chant ‘from the river to the sea’ has been heard in protests across the West after the conflict broke out on October 7, with many seeing it as a call to eradicate the nation of Israel entirely.
But Maher, 67, who is Jewish but identifies as an atheist, said the chant ignores ‘reality’, and suggested that Palestinians ‘come to an accommodation’ to end the decades-long crisis in the Middle East, as other societies have done throughout history.
He began by citing how Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christianity, was ’86 percent Christian’ in 1950, but is now ‘overwhelmingly Muslim’.
‘That’s my point tonight: things change.’
Bill Maher, 67, slammed the pro-Palestine movement for the ‘myth’ that Israel could be eradicated in the war with Hamas
‘To 2.3 billion Christians, there could be no more sacred site than where their savior was born, but they don’t have it anymore. And yet no crusader army has geared up to take it back,’ Maher continued.
‘Things change – countries, boundaries, empires.’
Maher implied that Palestine, which has seen over 19,000 deaths since Israel launched retaliatory sieges in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack, has already been hit by dramatic geopolitical swings in the past.
‘Palestine was under the Ottoman Empire for 400 years,’ he said. ‘But today, an Ottoman is something you’ve put under your feet.’
Feeling that ‘eventually, everybody comes to an accommodation, except for the Palestinians’, Maher said the hostile scenes and fervent antisemitism seen in the pro-Palestine were uncalled for as the nation’s situation is ‘not rare.’
‘Was it unjust that even a single Arab family was forced to move upon the founding of the Jewish State? Yes, but it’s also not rare,’ he said. ‘Happening all through history all over the world. And mostly what people do is make the best of it.’
He noted that after World War Two, 12 million Germans were displaced from Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia ‘because Germany had become kind of unpopular.’
Maher also cited a million Greeks displaced from Turkey in 1923, a million Ghanaians out of Nigeria in 1983, almost a million French from Algeria in 1962, and nearly a million Syrian refugees moved to Germany eight years ago – questioning, ‘Was that a perfect fit?’
Maher’s opposition to the chant ‘from the river to the sea’ comes as its use at protests has caused mounting backlash, with Palestinian supporter and Democratic commentator Cenk Uygur recently deeming it ‘counterproductive’ to the movement.
Maher argued that Jewish populations have been the most oppressed group in Arab nations in recent history, and used a chart showing population declines as he made the point that ‘no one knows more about being pushed off land than the Jews.’
Maher used a chart showing dramatic declines in the Jewish population of Arab nations to argue that ‘no one knows more about being pushed off land than the Jews’
The comedian said hostile movements across the West are being fueled by ‘useful idiots’ as he criticized ‘TikTok fans’ for a lack of information
Making the point that ‘history is brutal and humans are not good people, the HBO host added: ‘Yes, TikTok fans, ethnically cleansing happened both ways.’
‘History’s sad and full of wrongs but you can’t make them unhappen because a paraglider isn’t a time machine,’ he continued.
‘People get moved, and yes, colonized. Nobody was a bigger colonizer than the Muslim army that swept out of the Arabian desert and took over much of the world in a single century. And they didn’t do it by asking.’
‘There’s a reason Saudi Arabia’s flag is a sword. Kosovo was the cradle of Christian Serbia, then it became Muslim. They fought a war about it in the 90s but stopped. They didn’t keep it going for 75 years.’
Maher stressed that struggling societies ‘coped’ throughout history, and made the comparison to the Jewish family from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ repeatedly fleeing from the pogroms.
Protests across the West were filled with demonstrators demand Israel and Hamas agree to an urgent ceasefire.
But Maher appeared to lay the blame for the decades-long crisis in the Middle East on Palestine and its leaders for turning down peace agreements with Israel, as he also took a shot at embattled university presidents.
‘The Palestinian people should know your leaders and the useful idiots on college campuses who are their allies are not doing any favors by keeping alive the ‘river to the sea’ myth,’ he said.
‘I mean, where do you think Israel is going? Spoiler alert: nowhere.
‘It’s one of the most powerful countries in the world with a $500 billion economy, the world’s second-largest tech sector after Silicon Valley and nuclear weapons. They’re here, they like their bagel with a schmear, getting used to it.’
He concluded that all ‘war ends through negotiation’, and said the conflict will not end so long as Palestine’s position is ‘you will die and disappear.’
‘What’s happening to Palestinians today is horrible. And not just in Gaza, in the West Bank too,’ he added.
The comedian brought up a map to make his final point on the ‘from the river to the sea’ chant, pointing from either side ‘here’s the river, here’s the sea.
‘Oh, I see. It means you get all of it. Not just the West Bank, which was basically the original UN-partition deal you rejected because you wanted all of it and always have, even though it’s indisputably also the Jews’ ancestral homeland.
‘So you attacked and lost. And attacked again and lost. And attacked again and lost.’
Maher indicated that Palestine could go the way of Mexico, which previously had a border to the top of California, until it ‘got real’ and ‘chose a different path’, to today owning the world’s 14th largest economy.
‘If I give you the benefit of the doubt and say your plan for a completely-Jewless Palestine isn’t that all the Jews should die, what is the only other option? They move. You move all the Jews.
‘Where are we moving this entire country, Texas? Sure they have room. I guess we could put the Wailing Wall on the border and kill two birds with one stone. Or we could just get serious.’