Bill Maher Eviscerates Pro-Palestinian Leftists Who Ignore Islamist Violence: 'You're a Joke'
Bill Maher has never been a conservative and shows no signs of becoming one. But once again, the longtime liberal comedian has done something increasingly rare on today’s radicalized left: he told an uncomfortable truth.
Earlier this week, Maher sat down with The Free Press and delivered a blunt critique of pro-Palestinian activists in the West who style themselves as moral crusaders while reflexively defending or excusing some of the most repressive Islamist cultures on earth.
The phenomenon has been described by critics as “suicidal empathy” — a mindset in which Western progressives extend endless compassion to movements and ideologies that would show them none in return. Nowhere is that contradiction more glaring than among activists who wave LGBT flags while championing causes rooted in belief systems that openly persecute, imprison, or execute homosexuals.
Maher argued that many of these demonstrators operate with a deeply distorted moral framework. In their rush to posture as champions of justice, he said, they end up aligning themselves with societies that systematically oppress women, minorities, and dissenters. Whether through ignorance or willful blindness, Maher suggested, activists routinely ignore how people actually live under Islamist rule — a reality that exposes the hollowness of their rhetoric.
The discussion revisited a recent on-air confrontation Maher had with Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks, a vocal critic of Israel. During that exchange, Maher challenged Kasparian to name a Muslim-majority country she would prefer to live in over Israel — a question that triggered outrage among left-wing activists.
As expected, Kasparian’s colleague Cenk Uygur quickly accused Maher of racism, a charge Maher dismissed by pointing out a basic fact often ignored by progressives: Islam is a religion, not a race.
Speaking with The Free Press interviewer Maya Sulkin, Maher reserved particular scorn for self-described social justice activists who remain silent about systemic abuses in the Muslim world.
“Anybody who thinks they’re a social justice activist, which these people do, and your No. 1 issue isn’t gender apartheid in the Muslim world — you’re a joke. You’re a joke,” Maher said.
He continued, “It’s so obvious where the biggest amount of oppression is, you people who hate oppression so much.”
Maher also took aim at liberal feminists who appear unfazed by mandatory veiling, legal inequality, and brutal punishment imposed on women in many Islamist societies. To Maher, the spectacle of Western liberals defending movements rooted in authoritarian, regressive ideologies is not just hypocritical — it is absurd.
The HBO host’s comments are part of a broader pattern in which he continues to challenge the radical elements of his own political camp, even as much of the left descends further into ideological conformity.
Notably, those most eager to excuse Islamist extremism are rarely women — and never women forced to live under such regimes. And there is little reason to believe the death-cult ideologies driving Islamist movements would spare their Western apologists if ever given the opportunity.
Maher may remain firmly on the left, but in moments like this, he is saying what many refuse to admit — and what few with his platform are willing to say out loud.