On Friday, Bill Maher, who is certainly no fan of President Trump, shockingly came out in support of the president’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Maher told his panel, which included Rick Wilson, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (whose leftist bona fides include writing for Slate and The Nation and whose hatred of Israel is examined here), and California Congressman Ro Khanna, “I hate to agree with Donald Trump, but it doesn’t happen often, but I do.” Maher later suggested the reason there can be no peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is that the Palestinians are “perpetually hostile, a coiled snake.”
The exchange among the four people started with Maher positing:
Okay, while we’re near the Middle East let me ask about a big story that happened while we were off in December. Donald Trump: ‘Today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.” He said that Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like any other sovereign nation to determine its own capital. I hate to agree with Donald Trump, but it doesn’t happen often, but I do. I don’t know why Israel — it has been their capital since 1949, it is where their government is. They’ve won all the wars thrown against them. I don’t understand why they don’t get to have their capital where they want.
Goldberg, snidely, “Really, you don’t understand that?”
Maher: “I understand there are repercussions.”
Goldberg: “First of all, when you win a war you don’t get to take the other side’s land.”
Wilson: “Actually, you do.”
Maher, echoing, “Actually, you do.”
Goldberg: “Under international law, you can’t.”
Maher pointed out, “Especially because they were attacked. I mean the country was divided, which they were okay with. They were attacked more than once and they took land in those wars that they won and there has been peace offers on the table ever since to give part of that land back.”
Khanna, deciding he would speak for America: “Here’s the thing: Trump says he’s gonna strengthen American national interest. Now they’re 128 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, India, who voted against us. If we’re gonna do this, there’s a cost. What did we get for doing this? I mean, he’s the dealmaker-in-chief, what are we getting in America’s—”
Maher: “What happened for the 50 years before? I mean, this has been the fact on the ground for 50 years. Israel has been a state for 70, I think, right?”
Wilson: “It is the capital of Israel, okay. I recognize Ro’s point that if we’re going to be an arbiter in the peace process that just declaring this without having trying to use that as a point of leverage in those debates, in those discussions, it might have given away a card that we might have held. I don’t think though that this is going to fundamentally ultimately alter the conditions on the ground there because the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government is so collapsed in terms of being an effective political force in the process that the status quo is going to be the status quo for the foreseeable future.”
Goldberg, slamming the Israeli government as per usual: “But the problem is the message that it sent a message to everyone in the process. So it sends a message to the Palestinians that the United States is going to be even more pro-Israel than in the past. And it sends a message to the Likud government that you can basically do you want. And so they responded by adapting a resolution essentially calling for the annexation of the West Bank. They passed legislation that would make it much harder to come to any sort of final status agreement on Jerusalem. And they’ve done all these things that are going to make a two-state solution impossible.”
Maher, noting that Israel is always blamed: “But it’s always they’re making the two-state solution impossible.”
Goldberg, insistently brandishing her pro-Palestinian credentials: “They are!”
Maher, bluntly: “But what is making the essential thing that is making the two-state solution impossible is that one party is perpetually hostile, a coiled snake.”
Goldberg, determined to make Israel the villain despite the fact that the Palestinians have demonstrated time after time that they have no desire for peace: “That’s not true. Come on. You should go and see what’s happening in the West Bank. If you look at the settlements, if you look at the facts on the ground. The fact that you basically have instead of a contiguous land mass you increasingly have these little cantons. And if you look at the way that Palestinians — most Palestinians alive today were not born during any of these wars and so the idea that their lives should be blighted because of them. Look at what Americans have to do when they go through a TSA checkpoint. They completely lose their shit. And if you imagine doing that for two hours every single day—”
Maher, reflecting reality: “But this is always what happens. We talk about what happened as a result; we don’t look at the beginning of it. Like the Israelis just put up those checkpoints for no reason. They put up those checkpoints because there was an intifada and they were having bombings every day — a pizza parlor or a bus stop was getting blown up, that’s why they built it, not for no reason.”
Goldberg: “No, because also they want to take that land.”
Maher: “Some of them do, yes.”
Goldberg: “I mean they are not putting up settlements for self-defense. They are putting up the settlements because they want to have a Greater Israel, and they are going to get it.”
Maher: “Some of them do, yes.”
Goldberg: “There is going to be a one-state solution. So then the question is what is that one state? Is it Jewish or is it democratic? Because it can’t be both.”
Maher: “Absolutely, and that is a big problem.”
Goldberg: “So that’s the problem.”
Maher: “But when the gun is to Israel’s head — it is a problem.”
Khanna, ignoring the fact that the Oslo Accords ultimately were a failure: “Where are the Yizchak Rabin’s the Shimon Pereses in Israel. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu has done Israel’s cause no service in this country. I mean, what we need is, Israel has had leaders before who have talked about their values and talked about a two-state solution.”
Maher: It’s a little bit different when you live in that hostile environment
Goldberg: “You’re a rich person, you should go see what life in the West Bank is like. Go to Hebron. Like, no, go see it.”
Maher: “First of all, you don’t have to go to understand this. I’m not a moron.”
Goldberg: “No, but you do. I feel like it’s hard to really get your head around how bad it is unless you see it with your own eyes.”
Maher: “I understand that but Israel gave back Gaza and what was the result? Did they use the funds to build schools and hospitals? No. They used them to build tunnels to get weapons and they invited Hamas in to shell Israel across the border.”
Video below: