It’s an obvious point, but the obvious bears repeating. The absurd accusations of antisemitism against actress Emma Watson last week for expressing solidarity for Palestinians have backfired against Israeli leaders and in one bright flash helped to discredit an ancient tried-and-true strategy of the Israel lobby: maligning critics of Israel’s policies as antisemites.
Israel’s supporters have been effective for years at muzzling critics by doing just that. The good news of the Emma Watson’s smearing is that this time even establishment types raised an eyebrow over the strategy– and may even have noticed the anti-Palestinian bigotry that animates it.
So we should embrace the Emma Watson moment, as another landmark in the march to the mainstream of Palestinian solidarity.
Back to the episode: On January 2, Watson published a rather anodyne declaration of Solidarity with Palestinians with an image of a demonstration from last May, and Israeli ambassador Gilan Erdan lectured her about supporting “evil” and former Israeli ambassador Danny Danon called her an antisemite.
It was overreach. CNN published criticisms of the antisemitism allegation, including from MSNBC journalist Ayman Mohyeldin.
Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, a US-based progressive political campaign organization, responded to Danon on Twitter. “A perfect demonstration of the utterly cynical and bad-faith weaponization of antisemitism to shut down basic expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people…”
MSNBC host and former CNN journalist Ayman Mohyeldin was another who commented. “No joke, we are at the point where merely posting a vague picture referencing solidarity with Palestinians on Instagram gets you labeled as an antisemite,” he tweeted.
Miriam Margolyes, a Jewish actor who appeared in the Harry Potter movies that made Watson famous, also supported Emma Watson’s stance and called out the bad faith.
“The Israeli treatment of Palestinians is disgraceful. Anti-semitism is not at issue,” Margolyes, who was born to a secular Jewish family in Oxford, said, adding: “What matters is opposing cruelty, speaking out for compassion.”
“Criticizing Israel is not in itself, an anti-Semitic stance. Conflating the two is a form of disguised censorship,” she concluded.
Some Israel supporters recognized the damage of the attacks.
J Street’s political director expressed support for Emma Watson and accused her critics of “throwing around false accusations of antisemitism.” The Jerusalem Post editorial board rushed in to defend Emma Watson. “Fight Real Antisemitism, Not Emma Watson.”
[W]e also should not confuse real threats against Jews and a Hollywood actor’s poor social media choices. Antisemitism is a real threat that requires real action to confront it. Don’t confuse the two.
Though the Jerusalem Post also tried to shore up the Anti Defamation League’s witchhunt against Palestinian solidarity on campus.
ADL experts identified what they said was “a pattern of anti-Israel groups and activists blatantly demonizing pro-Israel and Zionist students,” and on occasion espousing antisemitic tropes, such as those alleging Jewish or Zionist power and control over the media and political affairs.
Several others have noted the Palestinian solidarity movement’s victory here.
Asa Winstanley said it was an important opening at his “Palestine is still the issue” newsletter:
The anti-Semitism smears are beginning to lose their potency…. Danon’s vicious attack on Watson was a bit of a self-own. It gave the game away: Israeli and pro-Israeli allegations of “anti-Semitism” are 99.99% of the time entirely fabricated, simply as a way to attack and undermine Palestinians and their supporters in the West. The bald-faced nature of the lie this time meant that some slightly more “mainstream” public figures felt able to defend Watson — in a way that they probably would not have done for Jeremy Corbyn, for example
Em Hilton, a British Jewish activist in London/Tel Aviv, echoed that view, writing in the British Tribune that Watson’s post shows that Palestinian solidarity is becoming “a part of the mainstream political discourse.” And Danon’s response was equally important.
[I]t showed that allegations of antisemitism levelled at those who have done nothing other than express solidarity with Palestinians are as malicious as they are absurd. We should hope that that fact sticks in the collective memory when the next set of accusations rolls around.
Hilton went on to link Danon’s post to anti-Palestinianism and the legal lies that politicians tell about the BDS campaign.
Danon’s post might have been absurd in its sheer and immediate overreach, but it was a logical extension of a process that seeks to render the very existence of Palestinians antisemitic, let alone displays of solidarity with them. This process has been at the heart of the strategy pursued by apologists of Israeli occupation for years…
Deeming Palestinian identity, imagery, history, and heritage an existential threat to Jews is used to shield Israel from any kind of meaningful scrutiny or accountability for its brutal human rights abuses.
Our publisher Scott Roth made the point in his weekly newsletter. These are the rules: “unless the main thrust of one’s message re Palestinians is that they only have themselves to blame for their own predicament then you are necessarily discounting Israel’s (the Jewish State) position on the conflict and ergo you are antisemitic. This is the thrust of what Israel’s ambassador to the UN, as well as his predecessor, are saying in response to Watson’s original tweet. Do they ever tire of this? Does it ever get old to hurl scurrilous charges reflexively whenever someone highlights Palestinian humanity?”
Well, yes, it is getting old. People are seeing around the corner of the antisemitism charge, to the anti-Palestinian bigotry that’s behind it. Consciousness is rising slowly but surely.
h/t James North and Adam Horowitz, and Dave Reed.
Correction: This post initially stated that Ayman Mohyeldin is at CNN. Thanks for commenter for pointing out inaccuracy.
It has reached the point of absurdity. Showing sympathy for the Palestinians, their suffering, and their vulnerability, does not mean you are “anti-semitic”, it is becoming ridiculous by the day, and it is time the media focused on that. Those who keep this absurdity going, are organized vicious groups found in the US as well, who keep playing a mean game of whack-a-mole, whenever someone has the courage to show their concern for the human rights abuses going on in occupied territories, gets beaten up with orchestrated attacks, insults, and accusations of being anti-semitic, so that they will be silenced forever, and afraid to speak out. The zionists are overplaying the anti-semitic card, and using it to silence the sympathy shown towards those who are suffering under occupation. Shame on the American leaders who keeps going along with this stupid game.
Thank you Emma Watson.
Israeli ambassador Gilan Erdan could appropriately be lectured about supporting “evil”. For example, does his conscious, strategic use of scurrilous, slanderous lies count as “evil”?
My thanks to Emma Watson for her excellent social media choice.
Major kudos to Emma Watson!! Feeling the increasing heat, the Zionist camp is in panic mode. The wheels are falling of its wagon and its only the beginning. As the old adage goes, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all the time.” Prepare for a wild ride!!
I don’t recall CNN’s Michael Smerconish saying anything on his CNN show, but i definitely heard him criticizing the ridiculous accusations of anti-semitism against Emma Watson on his Sirius XM show.
The insane automatic knee jerk response to label anyone and everyone as an antisemite to stop any and all discussions of Palestinian human rights is worse than the little boy that cried wolf and has utterly debased the term and stripped it of all meaning.
This is most evident in the US where you have entire pro-Israel lobby groups, special interest groups, advocacy groups, and Israeli funded entities working 24/7/365 on college campuses, in the media, in the private sector, in federal and state legislatures, in Hollywood, in the tech sector, on social media, and every other imaginable corner of the country (even the ice cream making industry) to shut down any discussion or public support of Palestinian solidarity, sympathy, empathy, or human rights. While at the same time labeling such activities as anti-semitism, yet they are completely and utterly silent and have done absolutely nothing to decry, tackle, or assist in any way, shape, or form, the litany of rampant anti-Semitic, white nationalist, and openly Neo-Nazi movements and their vocal supporters that are roaming the streets of America (with tiki torches and portable gallows) and halls of Congress.
Imagine if even one, let alone hundreds of Ilan Omar’s, or AOC’s, or Tlaib’s supporters routinely wore “Camp Auschwitz”, or “6 Millions Wasn’t Enough” t-shirts at their rallies or protests. Let alone attacked the Capitol and tried to overthrow the government. The scorched Earth reaction, policy, and mobilization from these so-called pro-Israel Jewish groups, not to mention Israel itself, carried out in the media and Congress would be insane! With these same Congresswomen dragged out of their offices and kicked out of the Capitol by their own party members,
Yet here we are with dozens of Republican Congressmen and women, whose millions of radicalized, Brownshirt, fascist, Jew-hating supporters are barely one or two elections away from seizing total power or forcibly just stealing it, and the silence and action regarding ACTUAL systemic anti-semitism, blood libels, and overtly disgusting tropes is deafening.
The standard Zionist handling of those sympathetic to Palestinians is classic “wokism.”
It’s also idol worship, where the Jewish state is an idol replacing God.