Simple Questions Requiring a Simple Answer

In a law class (but not in law school) a few decades ago, the law professor periodically would pose to my class a yes/no question and ask for a response. Before he got one, he would answer it himself: "it depends."

And so it was that Bill Maher on his podcast asked Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks "if you had to live in the Middle East, so, tomorrow, where would you live?" He mentioned several cities and countries, Pakistan, Karachi, Cairo, Amman/Jordan, Beirut/Lebanon. Syria, Tel Aviv, West Bank/Ramallah, even name-checking the Houthis.  He added "Where would you live/ What city would you live in? Where would you be comfortable- in that dress?

Bill Maher SNAPS at Ana Kasparian after she blames “Islam on whitey.”

MAHER: “If you had to live in the Middle East. Any city. Where would you live where you’d be comfortable in that dress?”

ANA: “I’m sure I would not be comfortable in this dress in any of the various Middle… pic.twitter.com/RyeqrYUkyN

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) December 8, 2025

" 

Kasparian would have flunked Professor Rose's class. Instead of defaulting to blaming USA policy on the Middle East, she should have replied "it depends." (The complete discussion of the topic, according to this blogger, is below.)

A rudimentary search for information regarding clothing permissible in the Middle East reveals a confusing array of laws and rules. What can be worn depends upon the country, the sex/gender of the individual, and, to a lesser extent, circumstances. There is no "one size fits all," especially because the government of each nation determines its own regulations.  Regrettably, the clearest explanation, and an objective one, comes via artificial intelligence, Google's Gemini:

A woman can wear a dress in nearly all Muslim countries, but the style and modesty required vary greatly, from Western-style dresses in fashion-forward cities like Dubai or Istanbul to modest, loose dresses in more conservative areas, with countries like Turkey, UAE, Qatar, and Central Asian nations being generally relaxed, while places like Saudi Arabia (which recently relaxed mandatory abayas) and Iran still have strong cultural expectations for covering shoulders and knees.

Kasparian could have explained that whether she'd be comfortable in a Middle Eastern country wearing her dress depended on several factors. But of course she didn't.

She didn't do so because she would be acknowledging something the left is loathe to concede.  Islam is different than Christianity or Judaism, the other two major monotheistic religions. And although Jewish extremism and Christian extremism present their own particular issues at times and places, in the modern world, Islamism represents both a broader and more serious problem.

Imagine someone being asked whether a normal dress- not even one especially revealing could be worn in Israel, currently being governed by a coalition of the ultra Orthodox; in the USA, in which the base of the governing party is composed of evangelical Christians; or in the white supremacist nation of Russia. The woman would be incredulous that even such a question would be asked.

But being unable to dress as one wishes without threat of punishment is widely, though not universally, prevalent in Muslim countries of the Middle East. And it could not be admitted to Bill Maher by a fairly prominent individual of the left. (Neither, truthfully, is it admitted by most centrists and, yes, conservatives.)

Clothing can be a complicated issue. Nuclear weapons not so much, thus this hypothetical is at least as telling:

MAHER: “Well, they have nuclear weapons, which they don’t use. If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they used it on Israel?”

ANA: “I don’t know.”

MAHER: “Three. Three’s the answer. Three seconds.”

ANA: “How do you know that, Bill? Come on.”

MAHER: “Because it’s in their charter.”

"I don't know?"  A living, breathing human being, co-host of  The Young Turks podcast, with 6.7 million subscribers, doesn't know whether Hamas would launch a nuclear weapon at Israel if they had one.  

That can't be stupidity or naivete. No one can be that stupid or naive. There is a glaring absence of honesty in political discourse in this country, and failure to recognize the danger of radical and militant Islamism is one of the most dangerous.

ANA: “You wanna get exhilarated right now? I can exhilarate you.”

MAHER: “I know you’re gonna say genocide, and I’m gonna say, well, you don’t know what the word means… Hamas is the bad guy. If you don’t get that, you don’t get much.”

ANA: “What Hamas did on October 7th was disgusting killing.”

MAHER: “Well, that’s the easiest thing in the world to say… If you hate oppression… Hundreds of millions of women have basically no freedom in the Muslim world.”

ANA: “So we should slaughter them instead, which is what’s been happening.”

MAHER: “Well, you should prosecute a war to the end. That does involve slaughter in every war.”

ANA: “Civilians get killed in wars.”

MAHER: “Especially when you hide behind them.”

ANA: “But when 83%, according to the IDF’s own data… 83% of the people that they’ve killed are civilians—”

MAHER: “Because they hide behind them.”

ANA: “But Bill, do you understand that by killing so many civilians, they are essentially multiplying extremism.”

MAHER: “I do understand that. Do you understand that there’s very often in the world two very bad choices… You don’t have a good choice. You have the bad choice and the even worse choice.”

ANA: “Israel has nuclear weapons, Bill. They have nuclear weapons.”

MAHER: “Well, they have nuclear weapons, which they don’t use. If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they used it on Israel?”

ANA: “I don’t know.”

MAHER: “Three. Three’s the answer. Three seconds.”

ANA: “How do you know that, Bill? Come on.”

MAHER: “Because it’s in their charter.”

ANA: “You have a difficult time at least acknowledging the atrocities that have been committed against innocent civilians in Gaza.”

MAHER: “Well, it depends on what you call an atrocity. All wars are going to have atrocities… During the Civil War, a lot of people would say, especially in the South, that Sherman did not have to burn Atlanta quite as badly as he did. I mean, we were pretty brutal. But would you also then just say, well, we don’t know who the good guys were in that war? No, I think it was the North.”

ANA: “I think much of the problems we have in the Middle East are due to the enabling of this expansion. Look, it’s an expansionist policy.”

MAHER: “They’ve never been trying to expand.”

ANA: “They’re trying to annex the West Bank right now. And Lebanon—southern Lebanon—and Syria, which they’ve succeeded in.”

MAHER: “Excuse me, these are all places that they were attacked from. When they became a country in 1947, they said, ‘Okay, we will accept half a loaf.’ They had as much right to that land as anybody. There was a continual presence there since 1000 BC, when King David had a kingdom.”

ANA: “I don’t care about that at all.”

MAHER: “But it’s relevant!”

(MAHER AND ANA TALK OVER EACH OTHER)

 MAHER: “You’re calling them colonizers. They’re not colonizers.”

ANA: “They’re expanding, and they’re annexing land. That’s what colonizers do.”

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Netanyahu's Blind Spot

The day after the world's foremost and now most popular terrorist group massacred Israelis, The Times of Israel noted

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products.

Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm.

The number of work permits granted Gazans ballooned prolifically through Netanyahu's five stints as Prime Minister and

Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip.

This was no way to commit genocide and nothing an apartheid society or government would do. Moreover, the policy of propping up Hamas while undermining Fatah and the people it governed (on the West Bank) not only stoked the conditions which led to the 10/7 slaughter but also reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Islam. 

Aayan Hirsi Ali was raised as a devout Muslim in Kenya, escaped the culture of religious extremism to become a member of the Dutch Parliament, and is now an American citizen.  Seven years before the butchers of Gaza attacked Israel and tried to wipe out Jews and take other Jews as hostage, she described radical Islamism in a short, balanced video.  Yet its prescient message was completed ignored, with devastating consequences, by Prime Minister Netanyahu. She explained

If the Jihadists win and the hope for a reformed Islam dies, the rest of the world will pay a terrible price. The terror attacks in New York, London, Madrid and Paris and many other places are only a preview of what's to come. For this reason I believe that it's foolish to insist, as Western leaders habitually do, that the violent acts committed in the name of Islam can somehow be divorced from the religion itself. For more than a decade, my message has been simple: Islam is not a religion of peace. 

Individuals respond to their religious faith in various ways, so

When I assert this, I do not mean that Islamic belief makes all Muslims violent. This is manifestly not the case. There are many millions of peaceful Muslims in the world,. What I do say is that the call to violence and the justification for it are explicitly stated in the sacred texts of Islam. Moreover, this theologically sanctioned violence is there to be activated by any number of offenses including, but not limited to, adultery, blasphemy, homosexuality, and apostasy- that is, to leave Islam. Those who tolerate this intolerance do so at their peril.

That would be all manner of countries and political leaders globally. They have included, ironically, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose obsession with the Palestinian Authority has blinded him to the far greater danger always posed by the religious fanatics of Hamas. Evidently observing irony, Ali continued

As someone who has known what it is to live without freedom, I watch in amazement as those who call themselves liberals and progressives- people who claim to make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities.

She recognized years ago, back during the Obama Administration, what virtually the entire world refuses to recognize even now.  Citing an example from her own experience, 
Ali emphasizes 

By labeling critical examination of Islam as inherently "racist," we make the chances of reformation far less likely. There are limits on criticism of Christianity at American universities or anywhere else, for that matter; why should there be of Islam?

There should be few if any restraints placed on criticism of any religion. Yet, even now- maybe especially now- criticism of Islam is suppressed as symptomatic of white supremacy or Western colonialism.  Further

Instead of contorting Western intellectual traditions so as not to offend our Muslim fellow citizens, we need to defend both those traditions and the Muslim dissidents who take great risks to promote them. We should support these brave men and women in every way possible.... These are the Muslims we should be supporting for our sake as much as for the sake of Islam.

Netanyahu defied this argument by propping up Hamas and squelching the less extreme leaders on the West Bank. If he had done otherwise, such as by realistically accommodating Fatah and isolating Hamas, the latter would have been weakened.

Ali concludes

If we do in fact support political, social and religious freedom, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. We need to say to Muslims in the West: if you want to share in our societies, to share in those material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional.

"Islam is peace," lied President George W. Bush six days after a terrorist attack killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New York, New York.  Now, after a terrorist attack responsible for approximately 15 times as many individuals on a per capita basis, the myth that "Islam is peace" lives on, with no one permitted to mention the words "Islam" or "Muslim" in anything remotely related to the Middle East. 

But while Islam is not peace, it's not war, either, or at least as it's interpreted by peaceful Muslims.  Putting his lot in with the most fanatical individuals, Bibi Netanyahu decided not to distinguish violent Muslims from the millions of non-violent Muslims on the West Bank. It was a fundamental, unforced error which helped expose Israel to an unprecedented attack and severely undermined the safety and security of his country.

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