Emma Watson endorses Palestinian ‘solidarity’ — and Israeli officials lose their minds
Instagram post by Emma Watson on 3 January 2022
James North and Philip Weiss write in Mondoweiss:
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.