In his final 2023 show, “Real Time” host Bill Maher delivered a stunning critique of the pro-Palestinian movement, focusing on the on the true goals of the Palestinian slogan “From the river to the sea.”
Maher started the monologue with, “It may be a ‘magical time of year,’ but what we all really need right now is a good dose of realism about Israel and Palestine.”
He then commenced looking at the situation with a historical lens, focusing on the dynamic nature of territorial control.
Maher began his discourse by drawing a parallel between the current state of Bethlehem and its past, stating, “the little town of Bethlehem was 86% Christian” in 1950 but is now “overwhelmingly Muslim.”
He used this to emphasize the fluidity of territorial and demographic changes, stating, “And that’s my point tonight: Things change.”
“To 2.3 billion Christians, there could be no more sacred site than where their savior was born, but they don’t have it anymore. And yet no crusader army has geared up to take it back,” Maher continued.
Driving the point home, he said, “Things change- countries, boundaries, empires. Palestine was under the Ottoman Empire for 400 years but today, an Ottoman is something you’ve put under your feet.”
Broadening his scope, Maher cited various historical instances of population displacements and boundary shifts.
He pointedly remarked, “Was it unjust that even a single Arab family was forced to move upon the founding of the Jewish State? Yes, but it’s also not rare. Happening all through history all over the world. And mostly what people do is make the best of it.”
This was followed by several examples illustrating the commonality of such events in history.
“After World War II, 12 million ethnic Germans got shoved out of Russia and Poland and Czechoslovakia because Germany had become kind of unpopular,” he said.
“A million Greeks were shut out of Turkey in 1923, a million Ghanaians out of Nigeria in 1983, almost a million French out of Algeria in 1962, nearly a million Syrian refugees moved to Germany eight years ago. Was that a perfect fit?” he continued.
Maher then contrasted these historical adaptations with the Palestinian stance, asserting, “Eventually everybody comes to an accommodation, except for the Palestinians.”
He then specifically referenced the Jewish population over the history of time.
“And no one knows more about being pushed off land than the Jews, including the almost holy kicked out of every Arab country they once lived in. Yes, TikTok fans, ethnically cleansing happened both ways,” Maher said, showing a graphic of the shrinking population of Jews in Arab countries.
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He acknowledged the hardships faced by both Jews and Palestinians but emphasized the importance of moving forward rather than being anchored to past grievances.
“History is brutal, and humans are not good people. History’s sad and full of wrongs but you can’t make them unhappen because a paraglider isn’t a time machine. People get moved, and yes, colonized,” Maher stated.
“Nobody was a bigger colonizer than the Muslim army that swept out of the Arabian desert and took over much of the world in a single century. And they didn’t do it by asking,” he said.
“There’s a reason Saudi Arabia’s flag is a sword. Kosovo was the cradle of Christian Serbia, then it became Muslim. They fought a war about it in the 90s but stopped. They didn’t keep it going for 75 years,” he continued.
Maher then listed all the times over the years Palestinians turned down a peace agreement with Israel, targeting its leaders and its supporters demonstrating at universities.
“The Palestinian people should know your leaders and the useful idiots on college campuses who are their allies are not doing any favors by keeping alive the ‘river to the sea’ myth,” Maher said.
“I mean, where do you think Israel is going? Spoiler alert: nowhere,” Maher stated. “It’s one of the most powerful countries in the world with a $500 billion economy, the world’s second-largest tech sector after Silicon Valley and nuclear weapons. They’re here, they like their bagel with a schmear, getting used to it.”
He continued, “What’s happening to Palestinians today is horrible. And not just in Gaza, in the West Bank too. But war ends through negotiation. And what the media glosses over is it’s hard to negotiate when the other side’s bargaining position is ‘You will die and disappear.’”
He followed this statement with a harsh dose of reality using a visual map. “I mean, the chant ‘From the river to the sea?’ Yeah, let’s look at the map. Here’s the river. Here’s the sea. Oh, I see. It means you get all of it. Not just the West Bank, which was basically the original UN-partition deal you rejected because you wanted all of it and always have, even though it’s indisputably also the Jews’ ancestral homeland, and so you attacked and lost. And attacked again and lost. And attacked again and lost.”
Maher’s argument culminated with a comparison to Mexico’s historical territorial losses to the United States, illustrating the pragmatism of moving forward. Mexico “chose a different path” and “got real,” eventually developing “the world’s 14th biggest economy now.”
Maher concluded his monologue with a poignant, if not humorous anecdote stating, “If I give you the benefit of the doubt and say your plan for a completely-Jewless Palestine isn’t that all the Jews should die, what is the only other option? They move. You move all the Jews…”
“Where are we moving this entire country, Texas? Sure they have room. I guess we could put the Wailing Wall on the border and kill two birds with one stone,” Maher mocked.
“Or we could just get serious,” Maher concluded.
Maher’s truth talk will undoubtedly upset many in his party which he seems to be moving away from daily. It is stunning to say this is a voice of reason on a very polarizing situation.
