salon.com:
Last weekend witnessed yet another fierce debate over Islam on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” just four weeks after the comedian tussled with actor Ben Affleck on the issue. This time, Maher’s interlocutor was the Italian-Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal, who took Maher to task for what she called his “offensive” criticism of the religion.
The impetus for the latest debate was the controversy surrounding Maher’s upcoming commencement address at the University of California-Berkeley, where a group of students circulated a petition protesting the choice of Maher, whom the petition described as a “blatant bigot and racist.” The university ultimately stood by its decision to bring Maher to campus, and during his Friday show, he assailed the attempt to cancel his address as an illiberal effort to shut down free speech. Similarly, Maher has couched his criticism of Islam in liberal terms, arguing that true liberals have a duty to oppose Islamic “illiberalism.”
Jebreal would have none of it, objecting to Maher’s framing of the Berkeley controversy as a free speech issue and castigating his criticism of Islam as grossly simplistic. Now, in an interview with Salon, Jebreal sounds off on her “Real Time” appearance, the debate over liberalism and Islam, and whether she’ll ever be back on Maher’s show.
Categories: Americas, Bigotry, Islamophobia, ISLAMOPHOBIA, United States