Yesterday the British actress Emma Watson, who is an activist on gender issues and has 64 million followers on Instagram, reposted an image from a Palestine rally last May with the message, “Solidarity is a verb,” and a quote about solidarity from Sara Ahmed, the feminist scholar.
And to judge from the crazed reaction by Israeli officials, you’d think Israel had been assailed by the U.S. State Department for human rights violations.
Watson, 31, became famous for her role in Harry Potter movies and was appointed an ambassador for the U.N. on gender equality in 2014. She reposted an image originally posted by the Bad Activist collective, of a rally in Chicago during Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. That collective supports a number of leftwing causes including action on climate change and is said by Watson to run her Instagram account.
Watson added this quote from Sara Ahmed.
“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” — Sara Ahmed
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., seized on Watson’s post to lecture the actress about the evils of all Palestinian institutions.
Fiction may work in Harry Potter but it does not work in reality. If it did, the magic used in the wizarding world could eliminate the evils of Hamas (which oppresses women & seeks the annihilation of Israel) and the PA (which supports terror). I would be in favor of that!
Danny Danon, the former ambassador to the U.N. and now chairman of the World Likud organization, called Watson an antisemite.
10 points from Gryffindor [locale in witchcraft school in Harry Potter novels] for being an antisemite. @EmmaWatson
The Times of Israel says that Danon has been widely scorned for the comment. “Thousands of Twitter users pounced on Danon, with most of them mocking the former UN ambassador, accusing him of misusing the epithet.”
This is a revealing moment because it shows how thin skinned Israeli leaders are. Granted immunity forever by the U.S.’s diplomatic backing, Israeli leaders fear the grassroots Palestinian solidarity movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign for equal rights (BDS) as existential threats. So any time any one with any prominence expresses solidarity with millions of people living under apartheid, they have to be smeared. Danon and Erdan are representative. The country’s foreign minister, a centrist, lately said that the global “debate” about Israel as an apartheid state is venomous and “radioactive.”
Scott Roth writes:
These people never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to hurl scurrilous charges at anyone who calls attention to Palestinians in a way that doesn’t dehumanize them.
The Jerusalem Post is even a bit sober about what is happening to Israel globally.
Watson joins a long line of celebrities and influencers who have expressed solidarity with the “Free Palestine” movement. Such comments became more popular in May during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
h/t Dave Reed, Adam Horowitz.
Another spectacular own goal by the Israeli government! They could have just kept quiet and let this slide. Watson’s followers would have seen this and either thought ”You go girl!” Or “Huh? Whatevs!”
However by actively attacking her and childishly calling her an “antisemite” for daring to show an once of solidarity with a people yearning for freedom from oppression, occupation, humiliation, military and colonial violence, Israel instantly showed nearly 70 million of her loyal followers EXACTLY what the Palestinian cause is facing on a daily basis.
SEVEN TIMES the entire population of Israel itself and from every corner of the planet, now know EXACTLY who and what Israel is about, and if Israel thinks Watson’s fans are going sit back and take this shit and abuse from the Apartheid state laying down, they are sorely mistaken.
Maybe the British actress Emma Watson would get more traction if she pointed out that her own government threatened to recognize a Palestinian state if Israel annexed the West Bank.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220104-uk-threatened-obstructionist-and-rejectionist-israel-with-recognition-of-palestinian-state/
“The UK threatened Israel with recognition of a Palestinian state if it annexed the occupied West Bank, a new book has revealed. The warning was issued in 2020, weeks before former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was about to move forward his controversial plan to formally annex the West Bank….Israeli journalist, Barak Ravid, revealed in his new book, “Trump’s Peace.” “
The politics of Ireland are about to change in the next election as Sinn Fein is set to take the reins of Government.
Sinn Fein has led the fight against Apartheid Israel for years and has said it will recognise the State of Palestine on day one of it,s term in office.This will give impetus to many other EU nations who have been reluctant to do so.
“https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40774926.html
“Sinn Féin is aiming to take at least 55 seats in the next election, as the party ramps up its preparations to lead the next government.There are only 160 seats and to date the two other main parties have managed to hobble together a quasi majority to keep Sinn Fein out of office.Those days are over in the next election.
Buoyed by six months of positive opinion polling, the party will look to run a minimum of 80 candidates when the next election is called.
Every time Ireland threathens this –Israel,s leaders have a kniption and soil their pantaloons.
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“Usually anti-Semitism has to do with an irrational hatred of Jewish people. In fact, you might say it always does. But Ms. Watson’s poster didn’t mention Jews at all. It simply showed empathy with the desire of Palestinians to be free. Many of the cabinet members in the current Israeli government believe in a two-state solution, & so presumably also would like to see the Palestinians be free & to see the Occupation end. President Biden & Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both committed themselves to a Palestinian state where Palestinians can be free. So why is Danon smearing Ms. Watson? Danon is a moral monster, seething with hatred.
“He has declared that the Likud Party has no place for anyone who would make peace with the Palestinians. Danon opposes the very existence of a Palestinian state & is willing to resort to purges of Jews to stop it from ever happening. “Here is what David Remnick of the New Yorker wrote:
“Deleting a civilian neighborhood in reprisal for the launching of a small homemade rocket is a disproportionate response in the law of war, & targeting civilians is a war crime. Under the definition of genocide adopted by the UN Convention on Genocide & the Rome Statute, deleting a civilian neighborhood of Palestinians for being Palestinians would be genocide.
“As for building a reserve to put leftist Jews in, I have a vague recollection of someone else who wanted to do that. Hmm. Who was it? Wouldn’t advocating that make a person an. .anti-Semite?
“Danon has advocated illegally expropriating most of the Palestinian West Bank & assigning the Palestinians to reservations, just as the South African government created Bantustans to keep the African population stateless & allow massive land theft. Danon calls this plan ‘peace’ with ‘the Palestinians.’
“So of course Danon was triggered by seeing the Palestinian flag & the words ‘free Palestine’ in Watson’s poster. Those are his worst nightmares…because he believes that his Greater Israel vision can only be accomplished by deleting the Palestinian people. He is looking for an ultimate solution…
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Emma Watson of Harry Potter Fame expresses Solidarity with Palestinians, is Smeared as Anti-Semite by Far-Right Likudnik (juancole.com)
By Juan Cole, Jan. 4/22, Informed Comment
“British actress Emma Watson, 31, whom many remember from her childhood role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, is all grown up. And she made big waves on the internet by posting an image to Instagram that showed Palestinians protesting, waving the Palestinian flag, & demanding a ‘free Palestine,’ with a placard that says ‘Solidarity is a verb.’
“She also appended a quote from the queer feminist thinker Sara Ahmed that said, ‘Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, & work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.’ The passage appeared in Ahmed’s The Cultural Politics of Emotion.
sexual harassment of women on campus. She is now an independent scholar & maintains the Feminist Killjoys blog.
“Ms. Watson did an English B.A. at Brown University in between her later films. In 2017 she played the lead, Belle, in Disney’s live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, which, at a $1.2 billion box office, is the highest-grossing live musical film in history & the 10th highest-grossing film of all time. She also starred in 2017’s The Circle, based on the David Eggers novel.
“Lots of creative people feel sympathy for the stateless Palestinians who labor under a brutal Israeli military occupation while watching their land & resources gradually being stolen from them. Some speak out, at the risk of damage to their careers. The Israel lobbies are vicious toward anyone who sympathizes with the Palestinian plight & will blackball you & get you fired & make you homeless if they can. Predictably, as soon as Emma Watson’s Instagram post made a splash (with nearly a million ‘likes’), she was slimed.
“Danny Danon, the head of the far-right, racist World Likud organization & former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, wrote, ’10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite.’ It is a reference to one of the four Houses of the Hogwarts School of Wizardry. (cont’d)