{"id":339909,"date":"2025-12-09T23:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/339909\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:34:07","slug":"bill-maher-ana-kasparian-young-turks-israel-argument-club-random","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/339909\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher, Ana Kasparian (Young Turks) Israel Argument Club Random"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA heated exchange over Israel<\/a> and whether a Western woman would feel comfortable living there or elsewhere in the Middle East took place between Bill Maher<\/a> and Young Turks anchor Ana Kasparian during her appearance on Maher\u2019s Club Random podcast this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe debate unfolded during one of Maher\u2019s wide-ranging conversations on the show, where he hosts guests ranging from actors and authors to political commentators. The tension escalated when Maher, who will not describe himself as affiliated with any political party or movement, posed a hypothetical question to Kasparian, who is also unaligned, asking where she would choose to live if forced to reside somewhere in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAna, you\u2019ve got to go live in the Middle East,\u201d Maher said. \u201cWhere would you live? You can pick one city. You could live in Karachi. You could live in Cairo. You could live in Amman, Jordan. You seem to love Lebanon. Beirut\u2019s nice when the bombing\u2019s not happening and the assassinations have stopped. Or you could live in Syria. I hear that\u2019s wonderful in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tKasparian pushed back, noting that Syria is currently controlled by extremist groups. Maher appeared to brush past the comment and continued listing possible locations, including Yemen under Houthi rule, before referencing Israel.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTel Aviv or the West Bank \u2014 Ramallah, I think, is wonderful in the fall, it gets lovely,\u201d Maher said, before turning his attention to Kasparian\u2019s outfit and pressing, \u201cWhat city would you live in? What do you think you\u2019d be comfortable in that dress?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKasparian snapped back that she would not feel comfortable wearing the dress \u201cin any of the various Middle Eastern countries that have been destabilized.\u201d Maher quickly retorted, \u201cYou\u2019re not really blaming it on whitey. You\u2019re blaming Islam on whitey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not blaming Islam on whitey,\u201d Kasparian replied, bristling at the characterization.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two then sparred over Western involvement in Syria, with Kasparian asserting that U.S. policy \u2014 including actions taken during the Obama administration \u2014 contributed to destabilization and included funding of extremist groups. Maher repeatedly attempted to steer the discussion back to the cultural implications of everyday life for women, specifically focusing on clothing and personal freedom.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTerrorism, the White House, jihadism \u2014 that is preventing you from wearing that dress there,\u201d Maher said at one point. \u201cAre you saying every Muslim is a jihad? I don\u2019t think they are.\u201d He later added, \u201cIf you had to pick, would you rather live in Tel Aviv? Because I promise you, you wouldn\u2019t last a week in the other places, and you could easily live in Tel Aviv. If that doesn\u2019t speak to a difference between cultures and civilizations, then okay, we\u2019ll leave it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKasparian, a vocal critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s current government, acknowledged that her political views might affect how safe she would feel in Israel. She recently faced backlash after an impression of Larry Ellison, the pro-Israel co-founder of Oracle, which some critics deemed antisemitic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think given my very harsh and vociferous criticisms of the Israeli government, I probably wouldn\u2019t feel so safe living in Tel Aviv right now under this government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, after Maher pointed to freedom of speech as a key benefit of life in Israel, Kasparian ultimately conceded his broader point.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m sure a woman of my age who grew up in the Western world would probably feel the most comfortable in Tel Aviv,\u201d she said. \u201cI will concede that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher responded with a single word: \u201cWow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A heated exchange over Israel and whether a Western woman would feel comfortable living there or elsewhere in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[10161,88,2091,803,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-339909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bill-maher","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-international","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}