Bill Maher is wrong on ‘anti-Israel’ protests.
Bill Maher thinks that he is not wrong. He hasn’t changed, so he says in his interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, but the left and the right have changed and they are wrong. He admits that the Right has changed far worse than the left, but they both have changed and he just calls it out as he sees it. You can’t help but seeing him draw an equivalence between the Left and the Right here, even whilst pointing out that the right has turned for the worse. He goes on to explain what’s wrong with the Left.
On the question whether he is a hypocrite because he supported the Vietnam war protests but now slams the protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, he argues that protesting Vietnam wasn’t against other students and that it was a just cause, but that now they are fighting other students and are supporting a terrorist organisation (Hamas).
Maher makes some mistakes in his reasoning here.
First of all his argument that Vietnam protests were for a good cause is debatable and influenced by hind-sight bias. At the time the fear of communism taking over the world, justified or not, pervaded american politics. So he might have found it a good cause to protest against this American ‘invasion’ and he might keep justifying it now. But at the time many thought otherwise. Else, why protest? He also doesn’t address the fact that the Weathermen who protested America’s intervention in Vietnam was a violent terrorist organisation.
Second, whether students are fighting other students or not is moot. It simply does not form a basis to disqualify a protest. It’s a non-argument and leaves out qualifying factors such as: How many fights broke out? How many people were involved in these student-fights? How many of these fights were initiated by radical anti-protesters? What alternatives do students have to express their views but to protest and in some cases block entry to their university (especially if the university funds, or is funded by, Israeli institutions)? And, aren’t protests always controversial?
Third, and most important, Maher conflates “the Left” with these student protests and he ignores that there are legitimate questions about Israel as a state, its continuous illegal annexations of Palestinian territories (state-terrorism?) and how it conducts its response to Hamas’ terrorist attack.
Maher’s claim that “the Left” is supporting Hamas is a ridiculous claim.
He probably sees the photo at the top as support for Hamas even though people should be able to express legitimaye support for Palestine withput it being conflated with support fpr Hamas.. Certainly when consideting that American Supreme Court Justices are allowed to show their support for insurrectionists attempting to overthrow the government and undoing the democratic foundation of the U.S., by using the upside-down star-spangled banner and the Pine Tree flag (“Oh, I had nothimg to do with it! It was the wifey!”).
For sure there are people in the West who support Hamas and yes, they will be amongst the protestors. But that is a far cry from “The Left supports the terrorist organisation Hamas”, or “These protestors support this terrorist organisation”.
Another, more charitable, if not more realistic, interpretation is that the majority of these protestors express a mix of feelings about their support for a disenfranchised people, their discontent about Israel’s heavy-handed response to a terrorist act further mixed with unease about the legitimacy of the Israeli-state which was installed by the West and to top it off, the West’s blind support for Israel regardless of its alleged state-crimes. I am not anti-Israel and I am not an expert on the middle-East, but I can imagine that these are issues that many of the protestors are voicing.
Compare this to Maher’s simplistic one-liner that protestors are supporting a terrorist organisation.
The reality is that the exitence of Israel and its behaviour in an already fragile region is complex. Simplistic one-liners like the one from Bill Maher only put oil (no pun intended) on the fire.
Bill Maher’s simplification rivals that of W. Bush/Rumsfeld when gathering support for the US invasion of Iraq: “You are either with us or against us”. We should expect more from our leaders and our intelectuals.
According to Bill Maher: if you protest Israel’s attack you support the terrorists and by consequence you support the attrocities of October 7. But the world is not binary as I am sure Maher knows.
The consequences of oversimplifying complex situations often plays in the hands of the terrorists. The U.S.’s unwarranted invasion and brutal bombing of Iraq based on the simplistic and convenient lie that Sadam had weapons of mass-destruction has not done America any good. The more strategic competitors in the geo-political arena, such as Russia and China, were able to build on the ensuing growth of anti-american sentiment and acquire goodwill in the Middle-East (and Africa). An growing anti-american sentiment that was not confined to the middle-East but also expanded in the West itself. For example the American right, Trump’s GOP, is now largely supporting Russia and sees a dictatorship as a better way of government. With its simplistic binary world-view the US is advertising its short-sightedness, it’s lack of control and its vulnerability.
US runaway-capitalism, where the rich get richer and the rest gets poorer, combined with internet platforms that capitalize on division (again using the binary world-view of ‘we are right so the rest is wrong’) further agravates America’s vulnerability. A vulnerability that can be exploited by the elites (the elites pushing Trump more so than tje elitrs pushing Biden) and ultimately by the US’s adversaries.
Bill Maher is joining this advertising campaign with his over-simplification of lumping all protestors under the fictitious pro-Hamas umbrella.
In the mean time one could argue that Hamas has already reached its goal with their brutal October 7th terrorist operation. They believe that Israel now shows its true face, that of a monstruous psychopath bombing women and children, and the West is showing fractures by getting more divided by the day. It would be no surprise if Hamas were funded by Russia to destabilize opinions in the West, would it?
The fracturing of the West is also apparent in the recognition of the Palestinian state by a handful of Western countries which is certain to be chalked-up as a victory for terrorism. It is a demonstation of the brittleness of the bond that holds the West together.
The answer for the West is not to buy into this play set up by its adversaries. Instead of justifying everything that Israel does, the West could influence Israel and its neighbours to ensure that the sharp edges of national policies are removed or at least smoothened, to diminish support for terrorist organisations like Hamas. This way the US would be a relevant player.
It’s blind support for Israel is making the US irrelevant on the global geo-political chess game.
What if Israel stopped illegally expanding its territory? What if Israel works with its neighbours to develop solutions that help all sides? What if the West works with Israel’s neighbours to restrict the flow of money and arms to extremist organisations? What if the US negotiates woth China and Russia to find better solutions?
Maher doesn’t address any of these issues and instead combs all kinds of fringe ideas over to the Left. A nice, neat and natural looking partotion, but overthrowing statues of confederate generals, using ‘mandatory’ pronouns, promoting non-binary sexuality, etc. are not The Left mr. Maher. These are philosophical concepts and thoughts that may be worth exploring (on the fringe or on a wider basis), and some groups (on the Left) have taken these ideas as their windmills to attack, but that does not make these fringe issues representative of the Left.
The Left stands for progressive capitalism that is directed at making the country stronger by developing equality of opportunity such as health, housing and schooling based on the idea that the country gets lifted when built on solid, deep and wide foundations whilst the Right believes in propping up the small elites so that some of that wealth may trickle down to the poor a bit like in the movie The Platform ( you may know it as the trickle down economy fable).
Fringe discourses about trans-toilets and ‘she-her’ etc., discourses that go out of hand, thanks in no small part to the disproportionate attention that the Right (and even some in the middle and on the left) and the Media spend on ‘woke-ism’, do not represent the main cause of the Left.
Bill Maher bringing up these side-issues when discussing anti-Israel protests, is playing into the hands of America’s New Fascism by doing as if these fringe discourses are the Left’s main cause.
“React less, reflect more and only then act” would be a more constructive approach to serious issues such as the Israel-Palestine problem.
What I take away from Bill Maher and his stance on the Israel-Palestine issue is that he demonstrates that even people with great critical-thinking skills such as mr. Maher, can fall prey to the bias of their deep-rooted cultural sentiments.
Note to self: if even the great Bill Maher can get derailed and suspend his critical-thinking abilities, I must double-, no, triple- question my beliefs and arguments as I am likely wrong and my first step is to publish them to my hordes of followers for their thoughtful critical feedback).
