US comic Bill Maher says Harris should ‘shut up’ about Israel
HBO ‘Real Time’ host pans Democratic vice president over remarks she made about war in Gaza, says everyone talking about Israel these days is ‘full of shit’
Iconoclast comic Bill Maher on Friday vented about US Vice President Kamala Harris’s policies on Israel and the conflicts it is embroiled in, advising the Democratic presidential candidate to “shut up” if she doesn’t have anything better to say.
Maher, hosting a panel discussion during his HBO political talk show “Real Time,” referred to remarks Harris made last week about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip that began on October 7 when the Palestinian terror group attacked Israel.
“Here’s what Kamala Harris said this week about what we should do when the war is over,” Maher began, quoting: “No reoccupation of Gaza, no changing of the territorial lines of Gaza, and an ability to have security in the region for all concerned in a way that we create stability.”
“I feel like if that’s what you have to say, don’t say anything. Just shut up,” he said.
“I mean, everybody who talks about Israel these days is just so full of shit.” Maher continued. “None of us want children to die. None of us want this war to go on, but it’s not addressing what the problem is.”
“People keep saying Israel has the right to defend itself, and then whatever Israel does, they object to it,” he said.
In an onstage interview at a National Association of Black Journalists event, Harris was repeatedly pressed on why the US wasn’t using more leverage against Israel to end the war in Gaza.
Bill Maher tells Kamala Harris to 'Shut up' after her vapid foreign policy statement on Israel that amounted to saying nothing:
Bill Maher: "Kamala Harris said this week about what we should do when the war is over.
-No reoccupation of Gaza
-No changing of the territorial lines… pic.twitter.com/fOalXKpnkM— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) September 21, 2024
Harris responded by stressing the brutal nature of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught. She said Israel had a right to defend itself; that how it does so matters; that too many Palestinian civilians had been killed; that the scenes coming out of Gaza were heartbreaking; that the US was working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal to end the war as soon as possible; that there should ultimately be a two-state solution to the conflict; and that Iran was not empowered to sow instability.
She also said she supports US President Joe Biden’s decision in May to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs from Israel over concerns the IDF would use them in densely populated areas of Gaza.
Israel’s much-feared Rafah operation eventually went forward without the mass civilian casualties the administration had warned of.
Maher, who has hosted “Real Time” for over two decades, is known as a caustic critic of religion who otherwise defies political labels. He has previously spoken in favor of Israel on his program, including during the present conflict. A lapsed Catholic, Maher discovered as a teenager that his mother, whose family hailed from Hungary, was Jewish.
