Bill Maher slams pro-Palestine protesters as ignorant, unemployed narcissists

Bill Maher isn’t mincing words when it comes to pro-Palestine protesters, who have been demonstrating across the country this week amid the months-long war in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians.

In Friday night’s “New Rule” segment of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the Emmy Award winner dubbed such demonstrators as unemployed and self-involved, claiming their “activism merges with narcissism.”

“Yes, I’m sure there are injustices on both sides in the Middle East, as there are injustices all over the world, but I’m going to be late for work!” he said, referencing protesters who have blocked highways and bridges. “(Work is) something you protesters on the bridge seem to have the luxury of not having to worry about, which seems kind of privilege-y.”

“I’m not saying there aren’t sincere passions about Gaza, especially among people from the region, but social justice warriors? For a lot of them, it seems like it’s more about the warrior-ing than about whatever the cause is,” he added.

“If it makes you feel good to cosplay as revolutionaries, knock yourself out, burn yourself out. Just don’t drag Gaza into it,” the “Religulous” star said, before suggesting protesters ask themselves, “Why do I care so much about this particular cause?”

“North Korea starves its people. China puts them in concentration camps. Myanmar brutalizes the Rohingya. .. Nothing?” Maher said, adding that pro-Palestinian protesters don’t seem to have “the slightest idea what kind of fundamentalist a–holes they’re supporting — Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Iranian revolutionary guard.”

Maher also attempted to correct the belief that genocide is what’s transpiring in the Gaza war, when in fact it’s Hamas who wants to “wipe out an entire people.”

He then went on to compare the protesters to former President Donald Trump, “who’s always pretending that he’s all about the cause of making America great again when, plainly, he’s simply history’s greatest attention w—e. He’s always finding some new injustice, from Obama’s birth certificate to rigged elections, learning nothing about it and making it personal.”

“So chew on that, my warrior friends,” Maher concluded his monologue.

As of Saturday, the death toll from Israel’s counter-offensive in Gaza has risen to more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, though the count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Hamas on Saturday announced it was reviewing a new Israel proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, which would include a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners.