Bill Maher faults Democrats for failing to condemn antisemitism

HBO host Bill Maher criticized Democrats on Friday for not condemning antisemitism, pointing to open calls for the destruction of Jews as Israel marked its 78th birthday.

"There is a frothing anxiousness for the literal extermination of this one group and, Democrats, where are you?" Maher said on Real Time.

He said that if any other minority faced similar attacks, Democrats would organize benefits and public displays of support. Instead, he argued, the party tolerates hostile views of Israel among younger voters influenced by social media.

"You don't tell your woke idiots that Israel isn't a colonizer or an apartheid state or committing genocide," Maher said. "And that, if you brats had to spend a week anywhere in the Middle East other than Israel, you would understand what liberalism is not."

Maher warned Democrats that he would continue to press them on the issue. "Until you fix this whole issue, stop asking me" why he is harder on the party than before, he said.

He also noted that some Democrats privately dislike certain left-wing commentators but fear speaking out. Maher said both the left and the right have indulged in rhetoric that fuels hostility toward Israel and Jews.

"Israel was founded on the idea that antisemitism made a Jewish state necessary because Jews would never be safe without one," he said. "Can you honestly listen to this rhetoric and not see why that turned out to be true?"

Maher compared some of the statements to those once used by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. He said antisemitic rhetoric now appears more accepted than Islamophobic comments.

The Israeli government said this week it will sue The New York Times over a column by Nicholas Kristof that described alleged sexual abuse of Palestinians by Israeli forces, including a claim that dogs were trained to rape detainees. Critics called the piece propaganda.