Maher mauls Democrats on Jews

There is a frothing anxiousness for the literal extermination of Jews — and Democrats, where are you?”

Bill Maher marked Israel’s 78th birthday by accusing Democrats of ducking a moral test.

In a blistering May 15 monologue, the  host of “Real Time” on HBO observed that antisemitism has become fashionable on both the far right and the progressive left — but aimed his sharpest criticism at Democrats, whom he accused of indulging anti-Israel voters instead of correcting them.

“There is a frothing anxiousness for the literal extermination of this one group — and Democrats, where are you?” Maher said.

“If any other minority group was being talked about this way, you’d break out the Kente cloth and have ten benefit concerts,” he said. “But because you see that so many of your brainwashed-by-TikTok constituents now have an unfavorable view of Israel, you indulge them — when you should be correcting them.”

Maher, who has long identified as a liberal but has increasingly hammered progressives over Israel and antisemitism, said Democratic leaders should be telling young voters that “Israel isn’t a colonizer, or an apartheid state, or committing genocide,” and that if they had to spend a week anywhere in the Middle East other than Israel, “you would understand what liberalism is not.”

He closed the segment by mocking Democratic presidential hopefuls who advertise that they do not take money from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.

“All the people likely running for president now, on the Democratic side, want it known: they don’t take money from AIPAC,” Maher said. That posture gives “permission to actual antisemites to say, ‘See, we’re right about Israel — that’s dirty money from a dirty country’,” Maher said.

“Oh, please,” he mocked. “You take money from crypto, and factory farmers, and big tech, from Diddy, and Weinstein and Epstein — but AIPAC is too far?”

He closed his “New Rules” segment by addressing “all who ask me, ‘Why are you harder on the Democrats than you used to be?’: Until you fix this whole issue, stop asking me,” he said.

The monologue began with a mordant birthday greeting to Israel, which became a nation on May 14, 1948.

“Since yesterday was Israel’s birthday, having become a nation on May 14, 78 years ago, everyone must either wish her a happy birthday or admit they’re antisemitic,” Maher said.

Then he turned serious.

“Now, it’s everyone’s right in a free country to be antisemitic,” he said, “but enough with hiding behind Israel or Zionism or Netanyahu.”

Maher’s argument was not that Israel should be immune from criticism. It was that the world’s obsession with Israel — and the ferocity of the language aimed at Jews and Zionists — reveals a double standard.

“If you think, as so many do now, that when it comes to human rights, Israel is the monster country of all time, you either don’t read or you don’t care about your own hypocrisy, because there are so many worse places,” Maher said.

“But that’s where we are these days — no Jews, no news.”

Maher listed China, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Myanmar, Haiti, Congo and North Korea as “all way worse,” then delivered a line at the heart of the segment: “And that’s how you know it’s antisemitism. It’s the inconsistency.”

The comic said Jew-hatred has moved from the fever swamps into respectable spaces.

“People talk about Jews these days like something out of Stormfront,” Maher said, referring to the neo-Nazi online forum, “except it’s not Stormfront, it’s an editor from the American Prospect.”

He cited a comment from an editor at the liberal publication calling Israel “a brainwashed psychopathic death cult that might need to be nuked to save the human race.”

“People say the left and the right can’t agree on anything these days,” Maher observed. “Well, [this is] one thing they agree on.”

Maher then took aim at right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson for hosting Nick Fuentes and Holocaust deniers, and at the New York Times for featuring left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has compared Zionists to Nazis.

“That’s what progressive is now?” Maher asked. “I guess so.”

He also ripped the Irish rap group Kneecap, saying young people “went nuts” for the group at Coachella last year.

“Their stage set is a sign that says [expletive] Israel,” Maher said. “Because, again, Israel is the only country in the world doing anything bad.”

Maher’s darkest riff imagined the far right and anti-Israel left joining forces.

“I see why the meathead manosphere and the Code Pink people are on the same page,” he said, “because they both went to high school in America, and they don’t know anything.”

“So we really could, someday soon, have the tiki torch ‘Jews will not replace us’ crowd and the queers for Palestine people working together to elect the next Hitler.”

Maher pointed to a North Carolina teenager charged with plotting to drive through a synagogue “to fulfill her life goal of killing as many Jews as possible.”

“Why in the world would this be the dream of some kid in North Carolina?” Maher asked.

He then pivoted to Dan Bilzerian, the social media celebrity and Republican congressional candidate in Florida, whom Maher called “a professional douchebag who’s attracted 30 million followers.”

Maher quoted Bilzerian saying, “The only real battle in the world today that I see worth fighting is, [expletive], you know, exterminating Israel. I mean, I would sign up tomorrow to go [expletive] put boots on the ground and go [expletive] kill Israelis.”

That, Maher said, proves the original logic of Zionism.

“Israel was founded on the idea that antisemitism made a Jewish state necessary because Jews would never be safe without one,” Maher said. “Can you honestly listen to this rhetoric and not see why that turned out to be true?”

Maher said Jews have lost allies across the political spectrum.

“If you don’t have the right-wingers on your side and you don’t have the progressives, what do you have?” he asked.

He then turned to college campuses.

“What’s more progressive than college?” Maher said. “Where professors now say things that would make Kanye wince?”

He cited Osman Umarji, a professor at UC Irvine, as having called Zionists “blood-thirsty animals,” and quoted Candace Owens saying of Jews, “wherever they go, they bring their filth with them.”

Maher also cited Hamid Dabashi, a professor, as saying Israelis have “a vulgarity of character that is bone-deep and structural to the skeletal vertebrae of its culture.”

Maher acknowledged that anti-Muslim rhetoric exists and should be condemned. He quoted Republican Congressman Randy Fine as saying, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

“That’s awful,” Maher said. “But it’s not the same as they need to be nuked, and let’s exterminate them.”

Maher said Jewish people in the United States and Europe now sometimes hide their identity, afraid that a Star of David could make them a target.

“Leave your Star of David at home,” he said. “But the Kafaya? You can wear that anywhere; you can wear it to ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and you’ll get applause.”

“Jew hatred isn’t just acceptable now,” Maher said. “It’s cool. Celebrities love it and make it trendy. It’s the new Che Guevara T-shirt.”

Maher rejected what he called the “Islamophobia is just as bad argument,” calling it “a false equivalency.”

“Can you name a Jewish professor who talks about Muslims the way they get talked about?” he asked. “No.”

He said anti-Jewish hate crimes now outpace anti-Muslim hate crimes “nine to one.”

“It’s not a contest, and I’m certainly not saying do more of the other,” Maher said. “I’m just saying, these are the numbers, the facts, the reality.”