Bill Maher: The Unapologetic Racist

Do not believe that Islamophobia is a sole prerogative of the American right. Some American liberals are just as hateful, and, in fact, anti-Arab sentiment has mostly been a left-wing affair in America.

This is mostly due to the liberal embrace of Zionism. Support for Israel used to be mostly a liberal expression in American life and the right-wing used to be more isolationist and the Republican establishment preferred relations with Arab governments due to oil concerns. Americans liberals, in the media, Hollywood and elsewhere, were the main proponents of anti-Arab and anti-Islam propaganda throughout the 1990s. Liberal intellectuals supportive of Israel used to casually demean Arabs. And many still do. Just look at the history of Hollywood films (produced mostly be liberals) to the styled liberal publication The New Republic and its Democrat-voting editor Marty Peretz.

This has changed in recent years. Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in now a cause of the right while it is mostly impolite to any longer make such racist statements amongst liberals. Although not entirely. Peretz was recently honored by a Harvard scholarship in his name. And one can still detect racism in some liberal writings.

But the most public liberal bigot is without question HBO host and comedian Bill Maher. His record on Islamophobia is well-known and no doubt influence by his fanatical support for Israel and its wars. Maher has consistently attacked Muslims on his show:

To see how anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bigotry is accepted and applauded in America, one has to look no further than HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, hosted by "left-wing" comedian and political commentator Bill Maher. "Liberal" pundits like Maher pass off their anti-Arab/anti-Muslim rhetoric as an innocent invocation of Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations." Yet, Maher's vitriolic diatribes are no different than one saying, "black people are ruthless, welfare grubbing criminals." Nonetheless, to a "liberal," the previous comment is racist and wrong, because black people, unlike the days of slavery, are now "like us," meaning white Anglo-American society, whereas Arabs and Muslims (as if they are a unitary, monolithic people), can still be labeled wholly as "backwards, ruthless, Jew-hating animals."

In Maher's program, he regularly brings on guests that espouse anti-Arab/anti-Muslim views, some of them being supposed "self-critical" Muslims. These guests, however, principally serve to support Maher's own bias against Muslims and Arabs, bolstering his pro-Israel feelings. These guests include conservative Israeli politician, and former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Lebanese-born neocon and political hack Fouad Ajami, putative introspective Muslim moderate Irshad Manji, and former Muslim, now professed atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, among many others.

Showcasing the "tolerance of liberalism," Maher brought on his claimed "hero," Ayaan Hirsi Ali, of the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, to help him explain to HBO viewers just what was wrong with Islam. Like a fat kid in a candy store, Maher looked to Hirsi Ali on his panel this season and stated, "[I] s Islam a religion of peace? You are one of the brave people who say it's not really a religion of peace." More than happy to respond, Hirsi Ali proclaimed, "It's not a religion of peace. Immediately after 9/11 they should have said, it's not a religion of peace, we're up against Islam." That's right because Pat Robertson speaks for all Christians and the list of disgruntled students that have gunned down their schoolmates since Columbine speak for all people under the age of 25. What if Hirsi Ali said, "Immediately after the black thug robbed the liquor store, they should have said, black people are criminals, we're up against black people." After her enlightening comments, while she went on to trash Saudi Arabia for a moment, Hirsi Ali received a huge applause from the audience. Even Steven Weber, an actor who stars on TVs Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, had to jump in and beg the question of whether it was right to characterize a whole religion and the beliefs of 1.3 billion people this way. Apparently it is because Maher, educating the naive Weber (who was talking of moderate Islam), asserted that "no, [religions are] not all alikeno [Islam] was extremist to begin with. Mohammed was a warrior." Maher's lesson on the malady of Islam followed up on his earlier comments in which he said that the West is not only better, but "superior" to the rest of world. Huh, I wonder why they don't like us.

And did so again this past week expressing his fear of Muslims names:

Incidentally I wrote a piece about Mohamed becoming the most popular name in Britain last week.

For the record, there are no Shari'a courts in Britain in the manner the ignorant conservative describes. There are family Islamic courts which are voluntary for any couples that want an Islamic adjudication which are not any different from the already established rabbinical courts for Jews which also address family matters. These courts are not parallel to English Common Law. They are simply voluntary arbitration services within a religious framework and they are neither comprehensive nor seen as legal standings, nor do they make a claim to be equal to let alone above secular law. In other words: it is nothing more than Islamic consulting which couples may or may not make us of. And it is no challenge to Common Law and not some scheme to establish Shari'a law, whatever that may mean, in Britain.

But that's how anything Islamic is discussed in America: prejudice and ignorance abound.