Bill Maher lambastes Chappell Roan: They’d throw you ‘off a roof’ in Gaza
In lengthy monologue, veteran pro-Israel pundit lectures LGBTQ singer — and Generation Z at large — after her thinly veiled reference to Palestinian rights went viral
HBO pundit Bill Maher accused American singer Chappell Roan of supporting Hamas and glossing over the terror group’s brutal October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel on Friday, in a pro-Israel open letter to the LGBTQ star and her Generation Z age cohort.
In a lengthy monologue on his HBO political talk show “Real Time,” commemorating the anniversary of the October 7 massacre, Maher responded to what he saw as Roan’s conflation of US civil liberties with trans, women, and Palestinian rights.
“I know you’re moved by what you see on there [TikTok], we all are. The dead Palestinian bodies. But it’s odd that your generation didn’t seem nearly as moved by the Jewish bodies on October 7,” Maher said, decrying Generation Z’s alleged reliance on social media for news.
While Maher did not mention specific statements made by the singer on Israel or Gaza, his diatribe came after she in June interpreted the poem “The New Colossus,” which appears on the Statue of Liberty pedestal, as a call for trans rights, women’s rights, and freedom for “all oppressed people in occupied territories.”
The cheers — and some boos — from the crowd during her show indicated it was understood as a thinly veiled reference to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and clips went viral on social media.
Known for his pro-Israel positions, Maher further asserted that while Palestinians may be oppressed, Hamas is their oppressor rather than Israel, and came out against criticism that singled out the Jewish state.
“Chappell, you’re not wrong that oppression is bad or that Palestinians, and many other Muslim populations are oppressed and deserve to be freed — you just have it completely ass backwards as to who is doing the oppressing,” he lectured.
“Hamas is a terrorist mafia that took over Gaza, (Iran’s) Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist mafia that took over Iran, ISIS is a terrorist mafia that took over Iraq, the Taliban is a terrorist mafia that took over Afghanistan. These are the oppressors, and when you make it all about Israel, you take the pressure off of them. You enable them.”
In a more personal swipe at Chappell, he recalled the Nova music festival, where hundreds of young people were murdered and dozens kidnapped to Gaza on October 7, amid many acts of brutality and sexual assault: “Doesn’t the sight of so many young women raped at a music festival make it a little personal?”
He further described the singer as “advocating for a place and a culture she would never want to live under,” repeatedly juxtaposing the way LGBTQ people are treated in Gaza with Israel’s more progressive society.
“Chappell, if you think it was repressive growing up queer in the Midwest, try the Mideast,” he said. “You’re a female drag queen, and you sing ‘I fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner, your parents at the table.’ That wouldn’t fly in Gaza. Although you would — straight off a roof.”
Maher also addressed broader accusations leveled against Israel, Zionism, and Jews, citing history, the Bible, and archaeology.
He rejected accusations that Jews had colonized Palestine and that Zionism was akin to settler colonialism, highlighting the Jewish millennial bond to the land and analogizing such allegations to “like calling Native Americans colonizers in here (in the US) — it’s ridiculous.”
He further invoked the theme of historic Palestine being a land without a people for a people without a land, saying, “For 2,000 years, Palestine was like an Uber driver with a three-star rating: nobody wanted it.”
The monologue was not the first time the pundit has come to Israel’s defense and assailed anti-Israel voices, specifically on US campuses. In April, he ripped into anti-Israel protesters at American schools, accusing them of co-opting the Palestinian cause for egotistical reasons.
