On Friday’s “New Rules” segment on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” Maher gave singer Chappell Roan a reality check for her political statements on Gaza.
In a recent TikTok, Roan weighed in on what is happening in Gaza and framing the war as a “genocide” of Palestinians.
Finally, new rule, to mark the October seventh anniversary, we must launch a campaign to educate young Americans about the Middle East. The way I’d like to begin that process is by addressing an open letter to Chappell Roan.
Now, to those viewers who aren’t watching this while also looking at their phones, let me explain. Chappell Roan is not the name of one of Trump’s golf courses. She’s actually a great new recording artist who, like a Hezbollah Pager, is really blowing up.
In just a few months, she went from a struggling artist to getting three billion plays on Spotify, netting her almost 11 cents. But here’s what caught my eye. She seems like a Gen Xer who can be reached because I saw her on TMZ say, “Obviously, she, f*** the policies of the right, but also, f*** some of the policies on the left.”
That sounds like something I would say. She also said, “I think it’s important that people use critical thinking. I think it’s important for me to question myself, question my algorithm, question, is some person that tweeted something about someone else even true?”
Preach, queer ally. Preach.
But then we get to Israel. And Chappell, this is where we must put to the test your pledge to use critical thinking and to question whether what you’re reading on social media is true because it isn’t. There’s a whole history of the Middle East that you and your fans aren’t hearing about. So why don’t you let me be your spirit guide through this?
*****
I didn’t learn about the Middle East from TikTok, which is a Chinese company whose totalitarian government would just love to have America’s youth hating America. That’s some of that algorithm stuff you say you want to look into. Now, first off, the fact that you don’t know much history isn’t your fault. You live in the United States where the schools stop doing that whole ‘teaching facts’ thing a while ago. But getting all your history from TikTok is like getting all your calories from Hostess.
I know you’re moved by what you see on there. We all are, the dead Palestinian bodies. But it’s odd that your generation didn’t seem nearly as moved by the Jewish bodies on October 7.
You killed at Coachella this year.
But when Hamas kills at a music festival, it’s a whole other thing.
Doesn’t the sight of so many young women raped at a music festival make it a little personal?
My guess is that Gen Z hearts are hardened by the propaganda you see on TikTok, which likes to call the Jews colonizers.
But colonizers are intruders who have no history in an area, like when Spain conquered the Mayans or when your mom took over Facebook. When the Dutch took over South Africa, they had no history to the land. They just wanted it.
But Israel is the Jews’ homeland, and Jews have always lived there, I cap you not. You can look it up. It’s in this book called The Bible, which is horribly wrong about sex ed, slavery, science, and cooking, but the archeology checks out. It says the Jews built a temple with a really big wall seven centuries before Muhammad or Islam ever existed. Sure as sh**, you can still go there and touch it.
Calling Jews colonizers in Israel is like calling Native Americans colonizers here. It’s ridiculous. Chappell, did you know that for 2,000 years, Palestine was like an Uber driver with a three-star rating? Nobody wanted it.
There was never any Arab country called Palestine. It was an orphan province. If you ask people what they thought about it back then, they’d say it gave them the ick.
But after World War II, and after the Jews were very nearly wiped out by an actual attempted genocide, they decided it was time for their historic homeland to be an actual country so that for once they could defend themselves. The UN, we like them, right? Yeah, they agreed and voted for a country for each of the indigenous peoples. One side agreed to that, but the Arabs had a slightly different proposal. They said, ‘How about we keep it all and wipe you out?’
Chapel, if you think it was repressive growing up queer in the Midwest, try the Middle East. You’re a female drag queen, and you sing, ‘I f*** you in the bathroom when we went to dinner, your parents at the table.’
Yeah, that wouldn’t fly in Gaza, although you would straight off a roof.