HBO host Bill Maher demolished the claims of his podcast guest, comedienne Sandra Bernhard, who tired to claim that it is conservatives, not liberals, who are guilty for the rise in antisemitism today.
The former Roseanne cast member was a guest on Maher’s Club Random podcast where she disgorged the common Hollywood myth that conservatives and Republicans are somehow the real antisemites in America.
Bernhard claimed that, while she is proud to be Jewish, she does not feel any fear on college campuses or in big cities.
“I like being Jewish. I go to Shabbat, I do my thing. But everybody’s suddenly like, ‘I’m Jewish, and I’m being [persecuted].’ I don’t feel persecuted,” she insisted.
But Maher quickly disagreed with her need to diminish the antisemitism, especially on college campuses.
“There is an antisemitism afoot in this country which we haven’t had in a very long time,” he replied.
Bernhard went on to accuse conservatives of creating all the antisemitism, but Maher vehemently disagreed.
“No, it doesn’t,” Maher interjected. “The right-wing has the ‘Jews will not replace us’ nonsense. The left-wing is even worse.”
Maher went on to explain that the deepest hate is coming from America’s “stupid” college campuses.
“That is coming down from elite colleges who see everything only through a racial lens. They are stupid. They don’t know history. They think everything is about colonizers and racists, and how awful America is,” Maher told Bernhard.
He added that the left is using Israel to promulgate race hate and blaming Israel for the sins of “white people.”
“And America has done some bad things but to drag Israel into this as the stand-in for every bad thing White people ever did – this is not any more complicated to most of these college kids than the Palestinians are brown and poor and the Israelis are rich and White,” Maher said of the ill-educated students.
Maher also slammed the left for claiming that Israel is a “colonizer,” and said, “None of this jives with the facts.”
Bernhard then went on to try and blame the current military actions in Gaza all on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“But can we get on the same page and agree that Benjamin Netanyahu is a shit disturber and needs to be yanked out of Israel? He is not good for Israel. He is not good for Jews,” she exclaimed. “He has also contributed to the global mistrust – it shouldn’t be Jews, it’s Israelis. He is solidly to blame for everything that’s happening right now.”
Maher disagreed again and he blamed the Palestinian people, not Netanyahu.
“He is so not to blame for everything that’s happening. That’s the fault of the Palestinian people and the religion of Islam, which gets lost in all of this,” Maher said schooling Bernhard.
“Right now is happening because for years Hamas took aid money and instead of buying food with it and building buildings and hospitals, they bought bombs and made tunnels,” he added.
When Bernhard then pointed out that Netanyahu also helped support Hamas financially, Maher agreed that she was right. But he did not agree that it equated to moral support of Hamas.
“Yes, you’re right. For strategic reasons, which probably were, in retrospect, not wrong. But it wasn’t like Netanyahu was working against the interests – in his mind – of his own people,” Maher explained.
Bernhard concluded the segment claiming that Netanyahu is acting only in his personal best interest and to remain out of jail, to which Maher replied, “I don’t believe that either.”
Maher has recently admitted to criticizing the left far more than he used to. On Monday, Maher told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that he isn’t getting older, it’s that the left’s ideas have gotten stupid.
“I haven’t turned,” he said. “Yes, people have said to me, you make fun of the left more than you used to, and guilty. I have because the left has changed. Now, the right has changed also, and even worse. I mean, the right doesn’t believe in democracy anymore. I mean, they’ve thrown their lot in with the sociopath named Donald Trump, who only thinks elections count when we win. OK, well, that’s worse.”
Also, in an appearance on ABC’s The View last week, he told the hosts that they lose credibility when they refuse to criticize their own, left-wing side of the aisle.
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