I have 30 minutes available and am compelled to reshare Bill Maher’s latest “New Rule” monologue, which JPost wrote about here: https://www.jpost.com/international/article-804613 I will include a transcript below.

Here is the video:

The monologue is dark but spot on. You may not like what he said, but it’s true that female genital mutilation, honor killings and other affects of Sharia Law are a serious problem in MENA states. It seems cool for far left and right to hate on Maher, but how many other celebs are willing to look past party allegiance? How many other shows are left on TV that interview left and right wing people alike? Even if you hate Maher, you should appreciate that his show still exists to showcase diversity of opinion.

For me, I was always shocked how people who detest Christian fundamentalism, how so many intolerant to conservative values, are tricked into supporting Sharia Law and Palestine. The likes of Briahna Joy Gray unintentionally point out why: Palestine Supporters have no clue they’re supporting the Islamic State (occupied Iran), the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sharia Law. They simply don’t listen to the people they claim to support. Ask them what the Muslim Brotherhood is if you want a laugh.

But as Maher points out, they sure know what they feel is Islamaphobic. Which apparently includes complaints about people being forced to dress like window curtains.

Palestine Supporters should have to finish their sentences. What are you freeing? What does freedom mean? Because it seems the only thing they’re resisting is basic rights and the most liberal societies.

JPost neglected to mention that the troubling anecdote of a woman beaten repeatedly for not wearing a veil occurred in Canada, not a strict Islamic State. "Yasmin Muhammad (human rights activist) ... got married off to a Muslim man with fundamentalist views about women ... Here's what Yasmin said about veiling, 'It just suppresses your humanity entirely. It's like a portable sensory deprivation chamber, and you are no longer connected to humanity.'"

There are Muslim dominated cities in the West where dress codes are essentially mandatory. All these clueless Palestine Supporters are embolding them. More flags with Islamic symbols are popping up around the US. And all this would be fine, if it was a choice. It’s simply not for most involved.

People who claim to defend freedom should have to define it. Forced dress code is not a freedom.

Transcript from the episode:

Bill Maher: And finally, new rule: if you're out protesting for a couple of hours wearing this, you have to go all the way and spend an afternoon running errands wearing one of these. You can't side with the people who ruthlessly oppress women without at least getting a taste of what you're supporting.

Now that summer is here, and the Hamas-backing college protesters have dispersed back to their summer internships at Goldman Sachs, I thought it might be a good time to say this: I actually admire your youthful idealism, and our world would be poorer without it. Much like your parents, who just wasted 300 grand on that ignorance factory you call a college.

Not that I think it's your fault for being this poorly educated and morally confused. That takes a village: shitty schools, overindulgent parents, social media, and that priest who rubbed lotion on you. But three cheers to you for at least having the impulse to seek a cause bigger than yourself. It's just that the one you picked missed the boat by a mile.

Here's the good news: you want a cause? I've totally got one for you: apartheid. The thing you've been shouting about with Israel for months. Never mind that Israeli Arabs are actually full citizens. You learned that word from a 2 Chainz song and discovered that protesting South Africa's apartheid in the '80s was a righteous cause, and so it was. To this day, when celebrities are asked who they most admire, one name is always the safest choice: Nelson Mandela. So naturally, when you heard that Israel was an apartheid state, it gave you such a boner you literally pitched a tent.

You knew how wrong it was when tens of millions of South Africans were treated like second-class citizens just because of their race. But here's the thing: today, right now, hundreds of millions of women are treated worse than second-class citizens. When you mandate that one category of human beings doesn't even have the right to show their face, that's apartheid. And it goes on in a lot of countries.

For the last couple of years, women in Iran have been saying, "Take this hijab and shove it." Because in 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested for wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly and then died in police custody. Security forces have killed over 500 people protesting her death and this obvious human rights violation. How about defunding those police? Amnesty International says that Iranian authorities are waging a war on women, subjecting them to constant surveillance, beatings, sexual violence, and detention—what P. Diddy calls a hotel stay.

In Iran, "Me Too" isn't a movement; it's what a woman says when another woman says, "My life sucks." Yasmin Mohammad is a human rights activist who got married off to a Muslim man with fundamentalist views about women—not exactly uncommon in the Muslim world. He forced her to wear the niqab all the time, including once beating her because she took her hijab off at home because the apartment had a window through which people might see in. And this was in Vancouver.

Here's what Yasmin said about veiling: "It just suppresses your humanity entirely. It's like a portable sensory deprivation chamber, and you are no longer connected to humanity. You can't see properly, you can't hear properly, you can't speak properly. People can't see you, you can only see them. Just little things—passing people on the street and making eye contact and smiling—that's gone. You're no longer part of this world, and so you very quickly just shrivel up into nothing under there."

And that's my answer when someone says "Islamophobe."

Really, feminists? Come on, there's got to be a happy medium between a husband making his wife wear this and a husband making his wife wear this. I know 1619 was bad, but this is happening right now, right under your nose rings. And it's not just the clothes. Fifteen countries in the Middle East, including Gaza, have laws that require women to obey their husbands—laws, not just Harrison Butker's opinion. Those societies also have guardianship laws, which means a woman needs permission from her husband to work, to travel, to leave the house, to go to school, to get medical attention.

Honor killings, where women are murdered by their own fathers and/or brothers, happen so frequently they can't even have an accurate count of how many. In 59 countries, there are no laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, and many have no laws against domestic violence or spousal rape. Twenty countries have "marry your rapist" laws.

Multiple societies have laws about what jobs women can and can't do. Make a Barbie movie about that. Thirty countries practice female genital mutilation, and 650 million women alive today were married as children.

Kids, if you really want to change the world and not just tie up Monday morning traffic, this is the apartheid that desperately needs your attention: gender apartheid. This is what should be the social justice issue of your time. How about "From the river to the sea, every woman shall be free?"

But in reality, it's not an issue at all for one reason: the people who are doing it aren't white. I hate to have to be the one to break it to you kids, but non-white people can do bad things too. Now, white-on-black racism certainly has been one of history's most horrific scourges, but also, it's true that in today's world, being non-white means you can get away with murder.

So, good on you kids for following your instinct to protest social injustice. Just remember, when it comes to finding a cause, pulling your head out of your ass is an important rite of passage.

[Applause]

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