THE SET-UP: Bill Maher really wants us to believe he’s a free speech champion. He also sells his show as one of the few places where “the other side” is invited to speak freely. That is unless “the other side” is capable of challenging Maher’s indurate view of Gaza and the culling of its population.
Since the war started, Maher has conveniently avoided talking to anyone who could and would challenge him. He could invite Dave Smith for a one-on-one and let his viewers decide who makes the stronger argument. Smith is Jewish and a comedian and a successful podcaster with a strong following. Or he could invite Ana Kasparian to come liven-up his predictable panel. Her family fled the Armenian genocide, found refuge in Palestine and, as a result, she brings a unique perspective. Even better, she’s made a point of talking to “the other side,” which fits with Maher’s self-gratulatory view of himself.
Frankly, there are plenty of options … Medhi Hasan and Bassem Youssef are well-known, media savvy critics of the war. Scott Horton and Abby Martin have well-established reputations in the alternative media. Rula Jubreal did appear on Real Time in the distant past. But now? Not so much.
All of those guests would’ve appeared on his show if his show was the show he claims it to be. Instead, we get Van Jones:
“My concern is that you have about a billion young people on planet Earth who’ve only heard one thing about Israel in their entire lives. It’s that Israel is hurting the Gazans. They live through TikTok. That’s all they see and know, and my concern, I think some of my friends in Israel think they got a hard power military problem against local bad actors. That’s true. They also have a soft power global information war problem for the whole generation that just thinks they’re doing bad stuff.”
No, that’s not the quote Van Jones apologized for … twice. That quote, which is referred to as the “dead baby Gaza” joke, went like this:
“Iran and Qatar have come up with a disinformation campaign that they are running through TikTok and Instagram that is massive. If you are a young person, you are opening up your phone, and all you see is — dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, Diddy, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby.”
While the “joke” ignited a firestorm of internet ire, it’s the other quote I am more interested in because it came on the heels of Netanyahu telling a group of paid influencers that TikTok was Israel’s “number one” PR problem. Bibi also remarked that TikTok is “the most important purchase going on right now.,” adding that it could be “consequential.” He was referring to Oracle’s Larry Ellison. He is a partner in the US effort to buy TikTok from its China-based parent. Ellison, who briefly became the richest man on Earth a few weeks ago, has quietly been a major supporter of Israel and the IDF.
His overnight media mogul son also happens to be the CEO of Skydance, which recently bought Paramount after it greased the wheels of approval by killing Stephen Colbert’s show as a favor to Trump. Not coincidentally, David Ellison just bought Bari Weiss’ The Free Press for $150 million and then put the reflexively pro-Israel opinion writer in charge of CBS News.
All of which points out that Van Jones’ “Israeli friends” are well-aware of the “soft power global information war problem” Israel faces. But they, like Van Jones and Bill Maher, don’t understand why they have the problem.
It’s not, as Bill Maher claimed, a misapplication of “Critical Race Theory.” Or, as Maher has said repeatedly because “Woke” young people don’t know anything or because of their generation’s reflexive Antisemitism. And no, Van, it’s not because Qatar and Iran are manipulating the minds of the young. Actually, Van was closer to the heart of the matter than he realized when he said all they see is “dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby.” The problem is that Israel has been “doing bad stuff.” A lot of “bad stuff.” And if Qatar and Iran want to share video evidence of the “bad stuff,” the simple fact is that the IDF has been the world’s most prolific generator of “bad stuff-related content.”
It’s not a problem Israel can solve with slicker PR or more perception management. For instance, Israel and its megaphones in the US media used to put a lot of effort into discrediting the casualty numbers coming out of the Gaza Strip. As the numbers swelled, every new tabulation was introduced with an “according to the Hamas Health Ministry.” We were also reminded that “Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.” It was a pointed attempt to interfuse terrorists armed with guns and doctors armed with stethoscopes. The implication was that the Health Ministry is itself a terrorist organization and, therefore, it must be pumping out phony death totals to discredit the World’s Most Moral Army™.
But that counter-narrative failed as the facts on the ground overcame the spin on the airwaves. It had already failed by the time we learned from the IDF’s own analysis that 8 of every 10 Gazans the IDF kills are civilians. And, as of July, 18,457 of the 60,199 Gazans killed were children.
Today, The Guardian published the names of each and every one of those children. If he wanted to, Van Jones could go to The Guardian’s website and scroll through the names of one “dead Gaza baby” after another. They also told the stories of some of the children. Here’s the death of 4 month-old Omar Ahmed Abdel Naser Shamlakh:
Omar lived in an apartment in a big pink house in Sheikh Eljeen in south-west Gaza. Three families occupied the house, which consisted of two floors containing four apartments. He was the youngest of 10 victims across three generations of the same family that was killed in an Israeli airstrike. “The whole family was buried under the rubble,” Waf’a Shamlakh, Omar’s UK-based cousin, told the Independent. “They only found two whole bodies. The others were in parts or unrecognisable.” Of Omar and his two-year-old brother Abdel, who was also killed, Shamlakh said: “They were just starting their lives, they still had dreams.” Read more.
And here are just a few of the “dead Gaza babies” on the list:
Yaqeen Yousef Sami Al-Tilawi, 1 day old
Yumna Omar Riyad Al-Rifi, 4 months old
Joud Mohammed Mansour Abdel Jawad, Less than a day old
Suhaib Abdullah Abdel Karim Faraj Allah, 1 year old
Mahmoud Medhat Mahmoud Shaheen, 1 year old
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah Al-Rifi, 1 year old
Yousef Osama Yousef Qandil, 1 year old
Qais Mohammed Ramadan Obaid,1 month old
Wael Amir Wael Assaf, 7 months old
Abdel Fattah Ashraf Abdel Fattah Rabie, 3 months old
Ibrahim Kamal Ibrahim Shaheen, Less than a day old
In total, The Guardian found “more than 973 infants under a year old” have been killed in the war. They have similar totals for toddlers under 2, under 3 and for each age segment. And keep in mind, that these are the totals as of July 2025. Scores more have been killed since. It also doesn’t take into account “the thousands still buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings,” nor does it include..
…the children who survived attacks [with] life-changing wounds. More than 40,000 children have been injured in the war, according to the UN. Gaza is now home to more child amputees than any other place in the world.
Could it be that the real problem is Israel’s wide-open rules of engagement … which happen to violate the Geneva Conventions? I’ve detailed the genocidal tactics employed by the IDF and I can assure Van that the real problem is right in front of his face … all he has to do is scroll through it to find out why the world has turned on his Israeli friends. - jp
‘He doesn’t feel like a normal child’: War’s toll on Gaza’s babies
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-08/gazan-mother-on-raising-baby-born-on-october-7-2023/105860988
Gaza war has killed an estimated 20,000 kids. CBS News meets many more orphaned, and “always scared.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gaza-israel-hamas-war-children-deaths-orphans-trauma/
Nearly 55,000 children in Gaza under age 5 may be acutely malnourished, a new UN study finds
https://apnews.com/article/gaza-malnutrition-child-wasting-un-study-055f7bc35bdd75bc6e858944645014df
‘My children have only known war in Gaza — life is a daily battle for survival’
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2118843/Gaza-war-hamas-israel-children
UNICEF official says Gaza babies forced to share oxygen masks, Israel challenges UN data
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/gaza-babies-forced-share-oxygen-masks-israel-blocks-equipment-unicef-says-2025-10-07/
Orphaned by Israel, two child amputees find each other in Lebanon
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/8/injure-orphaned-by-israel-two-child-amputees-found-each-other-in-lebanon
How Gaza’s children keep learning amid the destruction
https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2618226/middle-east
Gaza’s Children: Genetic Damage That Lasts Generations
https://www.islamtimes.com/en/article/1238795/gaza-s-children-genetic-damage-that-lasts-generations