Bill Maher slams BDS; Tlaib calls for boycott of HBO show

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Saturday called for boycotting Bill Maher’s HBO show after the liberal comedian denounced the anti-Israel BDS movement as “a bulls**t purity test.”

“Maybe folks should boycott his show,” tweeted Tlaib, who compared boycotts of Israel to that of apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I am tired of folks discrediting a form of speech that is centered on equality and freedom,” the congresswoman continued. “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.”

“It’s a bulls**t purity test. BDS is a bulls**t purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class,” said Maher. “It’s predicated on this notion—I think it’s very shallow thinking—that the Jews in Israel are 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 continued. “Forget about the intifadas and the suicide bombings and the rockets and how many wars.”

“Let me read Omar Barghouti, one of the co-founders of the movement,” added Maher. “His quote: ‘No rational Palestinian … would ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.’ So that’s where that comes from, this movement, someone who doesn’t even want a Jewish state at all. Somehow this side never gets presented in the American media. It’s very odd.”

Tlaib, along with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), was banned from Israel last week for her BDS support, though she was granted a humanitarian request to visit her grandmother in the West Bank, though she chose not to visit.