| Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu |
I would never have thought to see such an event.
Likud Party leader Benjamin, Bibi, Netanyahu, was a guest speaker on Real Time with Bill Maher.
Honestly, I do not have a lot of respect for Mr. Maher. He is a callous commentator who looks for every opportunity to lampoon conservatives just because of a point of view which does not measure up to the effete elitism of "mainstream" Hollywood -- then again, nothing is "mainstream" about Hollywood.
Bibi was spot on from the first question. He refused to quarrel with a smart-alek comic-cum-political commentator.
He outlined very calmly the fundamental difference between evangelical Christians and radical Muslims, a distinction which is completely lost on liberals. Radical Muslims have no problem blowing themselves up, and putting their children and their nations at risk to end the nation of Israel.
| Bill Maher: Stunned into a Respectful Appreciation |
"They are madmen", Netanyahu declared, and he received a staggered ovation from the audience. Maher did not dare cast aspersions on this man, who had the strength and dignity to speak his mind without being sullen or rude.
He identified a unique reason why Jews are still persecuted in the world, why Israel receives so much negative press in the Western Media. Indicting European guilt, Bibi claimed that pundits label Israel a "Nazi regime" simply because they do not want to own the fact that they did nothing while millions of Jews were persecuted and slaughtered.
Demonizing the Jews has been an easy game for nations that would not face the truth of their tyrannies, which hurt everyone. Yet for a thousand years, Jews have played the victim, having not status or recourse to protect themselves in lands where the rights and and protections belonged only to landed gentry.
Since Israel has become a nation again, the world must now accept that Jews will no longer play victim. Yet media outlets refuse to hold the Muslim terrorists to their violent acts. The double-standard in the intellectual world, and in the European community particularly, has not abated.
I do esteem Netanyahu's take on the subtle anti-Semitism at work in the world today. I challenge his reasoning for its origins. The world has gone soft on right and wrong, in many ways. The elites of today charge that values are a matter of choice, and more importantly no one has a right to presuppose one's choices and values on others.
Yet the Jewish State is a nation borne of a choice which gave birth, or re-birth rather, to a new state. The existence of Jewish state offends those who had believed that religious and ethnic conflict would have given way to the wars of different economic class. The primacy of religious sentiment may offend some, but the notion of conflict based on more than discussion creates more problems, not fewer. To the intellectual, every problem should be solved with explanation and persuasion, with compromise leading to a decent comity and community. Yet the partisan zealotry which compels radical Muslims to kill themselves and their families in the name of religious tradition wars against the moral relativism so prominent in the world today.
This is a bitter conflict, the Arab-Israeli fight, and the terms of this fight are more than blood and land.
Netanyahu understands this. Maher does not, but at least he was willing to listen.
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