EXCLUSIVE: Rula Jebreal sounds off on Bill Maher Islam spat: “What he is doing is un-American”

[I am a fan of Bill Maher - I watch his HBO show regularly and I even (recently) paid big bucks for one of his live shows which he then repeated a week later on HBO - I could have seen it for free. Although I don't agree with everything he says, I agree with his disdain for religion and I agree, to a degree - as I said in an earlier post - about his denunciation of Islam as a port-of-storm for violent behavior. BUT - so are many other religions, it's just that Islamic nations are in real turmoil at this time and the jihadists are using their religion as cover for a fight that is largely political.
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The article I quote from below is misleading, however, because Rula Jebreal, on Real Time with Bill Maher, kept shouting and interrupting without making a damn point. She kept repeating, "This is a conversation we need to have," without ever starting the discussion. Just like Ben Affleck a month or so ago who resorted to stupid finger-pointing and even name-calling ("racist"), they didn't make any points of reason.
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Now Salon gives Rula a chance for a one-sided debate. That's no fair either. Bill needs to be heard - his point that religious texts can be interpreted in MANY ways and justification for war, abuse, misogyny, and torture is to be found in all of those books. And right NOW - this decade - as Bill pointed out - the Muslims are making the most use of this violence toward people of other religions - and THAT'S what Bill said.
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Both Affleck and Jebreal are putting words in Maher's mouth and are arguing against a straw-man. THEY need to engage in fair debate with Bill and argue his points, not some made up issue of their own choosing. I understand Bill Maher's frustration with the issue.

Just sayin'.  Bozo]


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Luke Brinker
Monday, Nov 3, 2014 08:11 AM EST

The journalist tells Salon about her heated debate with Maher on Friday -- and the "dangerous" impact of his ideas

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Rula Jebreal, Bill Maher (Credit: HBO)

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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.
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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.”
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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.
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Your “Real Time” appearance came just a few weeks after Maher sparked a firestorm of controversy following his heated debate with Ben Affleck. Did you expect Islam to come up during your appearance on the show?
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I was told actually that he wanted to discuss the Berkeley thing, and I was told that he wanted to discuss the connection between torture applied by the CIA in prisons like Camp Bucca and the rise of extremism, and also the fact that ISIS is utilizing the same techniques. So I knew that he wanted to discuss that.
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I thought that Berkeley would open up the conversation about that issue. So I thought that he wanted to talk about Berkeley, and make it about free speech – and that was not true. The whole point for me was that nobody is banning him. Actually the students asked to invite him for a debate, where they can have real dialogue. And a commencement speech does not offer that opportunity – and saying it’s a free speech thing and it’s about the principles of liberalism, I don’t think that’s a correct reporting of events.

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Do you think this ongoing debate over Islam is a productive one? And is “Real Time” a good venue for it?
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No, no.
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Look, I think it’s a productive one if it’s a real debate on this issue. It’s an important issue, no doubt. However, my fear is that even if you’re a secular Muslim or Sufi or Sunni Shafi’i who looks at the jihadis and is appalled by them – and look at the father, the Nigerian father of the Christmas bomber, who actually denounced his own son – and look at the rise of ISIS with a lot of concern and worry – then hear on TV shows that this is Islam, it’s a sweeping generalization. It’s collective. There’s no nuance. No history.
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To say that the rise of ISIS is Islamic is simply wrong. There is a theology that’s wrong and needs to be reformed. But also, unfortunately, the rise of ISIS a byproduct of the Iraq War and the terrible way that Iraq was administrated. And it’s connected directly to that war. And to exclude the sectarian policies of Maliki – or even to exclude the responsibility of the way we acted inside prisons like Camp Bucca or Guantanamo – not to see the connection is naïve and dangerous. Even people like General James Gerrond, who was in charge of Camp Bucca, he said that he had an impression that they were not there to hold detainees. He had the impression it was a pressure cooker for extremists.
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And it is true.
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So it’s easy to view it as “this is about Islam” and it’s harder to actually address these real issues. The real issues are Maliki’s policies, the way we invaded Iraq, the terrible administration of Iraq, the responsibility of our allies like Saudi Arabia, which is financing jihadists, which actually supports Wahhabism. Or even look at the responsibility of the Egyptian government. Today we have 20,000 people sitting in jail. Twenty thousand Islamists who are not violent. The next bin Laden is sitting in jail.

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