Bill Maher Blasts Israel Critic Bella Hadid: She Would ‘Run Screaming to Tel Aviv’ if She Lived in Gaza
by Algemeiner Staff
Late-night talk show host Bill Maher slammed anti-Israel celebrity Bella Hadid on Friday, saying that she would “run screaming to Tel Aviv” if she actually lived in Gaza.
In an exchange with the pro-Palestinian New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who made several serious charges against Israeli actions during the recent hostilities, Maher strongly criticized the social media attacks on the Jewish state by celebrities like Hadid.
“You know, as far as Gaza goes, it’s amazing to me that the progressives think that they’re being progressive by taking that side of it, the Bella Hadids of the world, these influencers,” Maher said, according to Fox News.
“I just want to say in February of this year, a Hamas court ruled that an unmarried woman cannot travel in Gaza without the permission of a male guardian. Really? That’s where the progressives are? Bella Hadid and her friends would run screaming to Tel Aviv if they had to live in Gaza for one day,” he continued.
Kristof argued that Hadid had humanitarian concerns, to which Maher replied by noting that Hadid had repeated the “from the river to the sea” chant that calls for annihilating Israel in favor of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Maher also struck out at the media in general, saying, “One of the frustrations I had while I was off is that I was watching this war go on in Israel … and it was frustrating to me because there was no one on liberal media to defend Israel, really.”
Kristof claimed that Israel committed unspecified war crimes during the recent conflict, to which Maher replied, “Well, Gaza fired 4,000 rockets into Israel. What would you say Israel should have done instead of what they did?”
Kristof also alleged, without evidence, that Israel “did not sufficiently avoid civilian casualties.”
“But they purposely put the rockets in civilian places,” Maher shot back, referring to Hamas. “That’s their strategy.”