Comedian Bill Maher on Friday slammed college students taking part in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses for ignoring Iran’s “war on women.”
During an episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher told viewers that anti-Israel student protesters were supporting “people who ruthlessly oppress women.”
“With summer here and the pro-Hamas campus protesters scattering for their summer internships at Goldman Sachs, I thought this was a good time to say this,” Maher began. “I actually admire your youthful idealism and the world would be a poorer place without it. It’s a lot like your parents wasting $300,000 on this factory of ignorance you call college.”
“I don’t think it’s your fault you’re uneducated and morally confused. It takes a village,” he continued. “Bad schools, overly indulgent parents, social media, that pastor who put lotion on you. But I applaud you for at least having the urge to seek a cause bigger than yourself. It’s just that your choices are completely off the mark for you.”
Maher suggested that campus protesters take up the “apartheid” cause, which he said they have been “screaming with Israel for months.” The rise in anti-Israel protests on college campuses, which first garnered media attention at Columbia University and spread across the United States, began several months after attacks on Israel by the Islamic militant group Hamas. (RELATED: ‘Oh My God!’: Megyn Kelly Fires Back at Bill Maher About Democratic ‘Election Deniers’)
“Obviously, if they heard Israel was an ‘apartheid state,’ they would get very excited and literally pitch tents,” Maher said.
Kids, if you want to change the world, if you want to end Monday morning traffic, this is the apartheid you absolutely need to pay attention to. #GenderApartheid. pic.twitter.com/0Ajep3JUnN
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) June 1, 2024
The “Real Time” host said university students “know how wrong” racism in South Africa is. He suggested protesters redirect their efforts to the hundreds of millions of women in Middle Eastern countries who are “treated worse than second-class citizens.”
“When you say you can’t even show your face to a certain category of people, that’s apartheid,” Maher said, “and it’s practiced in many countries.”
“In recent years, Iranian women have been saying, ‘Take off the hijab and throw it away,'” Maher continued.
Maher told the story of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested in Iran for “not wearing the hijab correctly.” Amini died in police custody, sparking protests among angry Iranians demanding an investigation into her death.
“This is apartheid that desperately needs your attention. This is gender apartheid,” Maher said. “This should be the social justice issue of your time. How about, ‘From the river to the sea, all women are free.'”
