Rep. Rashida Tlaib suggested boycotting “Real Time With Bill Maher” Saturday after he called the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement she supports a “bulls— purity test” during Friday’s HBO show.
“Maybe folks should boycott his show,” she tweeted Saturday. “I am tired of folks discrediting a form of speech that is centered on equality and freedom. This is exactly how they tried to discredit & stop the boycott to stand up against the apartheid in S. Africa. It didn’t work then and it won’t now.”
Michigan’s outspoken Democratic freshman in Congress was responding to a tweet earlier in the day by Intercept columnist Mehdi Hasan, in which he included a clip of a roundtable discussion on Maher’s “Real Time” Friday criticizing BDS. Hasan wrote: “Maher rails against BDS, Palestinians, and Omar/Tlaib with an all-white panel featuring no Palestinians, no Arabs, no Muslims, no people of colour. ‘Liberal’ Maher.”
Maher came out hard against the BDS movement Friday, calling it a “bulls— purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class.”
It is “very shallow thinking that the Jews in Israel, mostly white, and the Palestinians are browner, so they must be innocent and correct, and the Jews must be wrong. As if the occupation came right out of the blue, that this completely peaceful people found themselves occupied,” he added.
Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar were denied entry into Israel last week because of their support of the movement and following a tweet from Trump saying, “It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit.”
Although the Israeli government later Friday said that Tlaib would be allowed to visit her grandmother in the West Bank if she filed a humanitarian request and pledged not to voice her support for the BDS movement while in the region, Tlaib reversed course and said she would not got to Israel.
“When I won, it gave the Palestinian people hope that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions,” Tlaib said in a statement Friday. “I can’t allow the State of Israel to take away that light by humiliating me & use my love for my sity to bow down to their oppressive & racist policies.”