Bill Maher criticized the college-aged protesters as performative publicity seekers, warning that “no one likes you,” in a withering putdown on his HBO show.
The comedian and pundit criticized protesters, who have brought chaos to the ‘regulars’ with sit-ins on major highways and university campuses, for harming their own cause.
He called the Palestinian headscarf the modern equivalent of Che Guevara’s T-shirt and scorned their ‘cosplay as revolutionaries’ while disrupting the lives of those who have to work to earn a living.
‘Hey, if it makes you feel good dressing up as revolutionaries. Knock yourself out. Burn. Just don’t drag Gaza into this,” he said on Real Time with Bill Maher.
‘Also, throwing things on paintings is stupid. No one sees mashed potatoes in a Monet and thinks they’re right: I should recycle my cans.
Bill Maher criticized the college-aged protesters as performative publicity seekers, warning that “no one likes you,” in a withering putdown on his HBO show.
Protesters have repeatedly attacked major bridges and roads, causing chaos in city centers since the protests broke out.
Maher joked that the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, seen here on UCLA students, is today’s equivalent of Che Guevara’s T-shirt.
The 68-year-old had already clashed with guest Don Lemon, who was appearing alongside NYU professor Scott Galloway, after the former CNN host complained about living “in uncomfortable spaces all the time.” .
‘What do you mean by uncomfortable spaces?’ Maher asked.
Lemon responded, “I’m often the only person of color in the room.”
“There are only three of us,” Maher noted.
The exchange prompted a response from Caitlyn Jenner, who tweeted: “Good for you, Bill Maher.”
‘Don is a privileged, wealthy celebrity (not to mention suing X and CNN over alleged contractual terms). Superate yourself.’
But Maher saved his most scathing comments for those protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, denouncing them as ignorant and misguided, dubbing New York’s Columbia State University “Kanye State.”
‘Do you know Easter?’ she asked. ‘Celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt in biblical times. And today it celebrates the Exodus of the Jews at Columbia University.
‘I’m not saying there aren’t sincere passions for Gaza, especially among people in the region, but for many of them, it seems to be more about war than any cause.
Lectures are back online at Columbia University in New York after protesters took over the university grounds.
Columbia is one of dozens of universities that have been caught up in the protests between Israel and Hamas, and other prestigious universities, such as Harvard and MIT, have been plunged into chaos.
There were more road protests in DC on Saturday night before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
‘If you really cared that much about apartheid, which Israel doesn’t actually practice.
“Arabs there vote, serve in Parliament, hold positions in the judiciary. Wouldn’t you start with this? With the hundreds of millions of women in the world who live under true apartheid, gender apartheid of the most brutal kind? I’ll wait.
‘Are you really speaking truth to power, or do you just think you look cool in a keffiyeh, which is actually just Che Guevara’s new t-shirt?’
‘Another historical figure you never researched and still consider a hero, but who was actually a sadistic, racist monster who fought for communism, the worst form of government that has ever existed. But these are minor matters.
‘Small matters, when activism merges with narcissism.
‘Less about the cause and more about me, look at me, look at me! And if you like the way I fight injustice, remember to like and subscribe!’
Among those joining the ranks of unemployed protesters were the 28 Google employees who were fired earlier this month for joining a protest at the company’s offices in New York and California.
‘Maybe if these Googlers had even the slightest idea what kind of oppressive fundamentalist morons they were supporting (Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard) they could take it a little easier on the world’s biggest monster, the Genocide Joe. ‘ he said.
‘By the way, genocide is when you want to exterminate an entire people. That is the stated goal of Hamas. That’s what From the River to the Sea means. Hamas would do that to Israel, but he can’t. Israel could do that to them, but it doesn’t.
Do you know how you can find out? Google it!’
And he mocked American airman Aaron Bushnell, 25, who burned himself alive outside the Israeli embassy in D.C. in February in protest of the United States’ involvement in the country’s attack on Gaza.
‘In his last Facebook post he said: ‘Many of us like to ask ourselves: what would you do if you were alive during slavery?’ Maher commented.
‘Interesting question about the cocktail, sir. And I guess the correct answer is to kill myself.
“But it wouldn’t really have solved the problem if General Ulysses S. Grant had blown himself up and his last words were, ‘Hey, Lincoln, are you using that log?’
And then, last week, another sad, confused man set himself on fire at the Trump trial in New York.
“So you can call yourself a martyr for the Palestinian cause, but it’s a lot less special when the next guy does it for Stormy Daniels.”
He demanded to know why the protesters were not targeting repressive regimes, including China, North Korea and Myanmar, rather than the United States’ ally in the Middle East.
And he warned that protesters would never gain allies among the American public by disrupting their lives.
‘Someone needs to tell the people who block traffic in the name of a cause that no one likes them. And you’re probably hurting your cause,’ he insisted.
‘In case you haven’t seen what’s been going on lately, activists to end the war in Gaza have started gathering on roads and bridges and preventing travelers from crossing.
‘It happened last week in New York and San Francisco. Chicago, Seattle. They also blocked traffic here on the 405, but no one noticed.
Police attempts to remove and arrest protesters like here at Northeastern University have been thwarted with protesters returning to cleared spaces.
Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin was among those detained by police.
‘What they did notice was this: that you have to be pretty stupid to think that the way to bring people closer to your point of view is to make them late to pick up their children from daycare.
And that’s what most normal people think. I have a son, I have a job. And yes, I’m sure there are injustices on both sides in the Middle East just as there are injustices all over the world, but I’ll be late for work.
“Something you protesters on the bridge seem to have the luxury of not having to worry about, which seems like some kind of privilege.”
“You can stick your hands to the street because today your hands don’t have to do any work.”