{"id":1562405,"date":"2024-03-19T21:12:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T21:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=463998"},"modified":"2024-03-19T21:12:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T21:12:27","slug":"even-mentioning-occupation-at-the-oscars-is-antisemitic-some-jewish-hollywood-figures-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/03\/19\/even-mentioning-occupation-at-the-oscars-is-antisemitic-some-jewish-hollywood-figures-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Mentioning \u201cOccupation\u201d at the Oscars Is Antisemitic, Some Jewish Hollywood Figures Say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n \"TOPSHOT\n
\n English director Jonathan Glazer poses in the press room with the Oscar for Best International Feature Film for \u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d during the 96th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., on March 10, 2024. <\/span>\n Photo: Robyn Beck\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The backlash against<\/u> even the mildest-mannered protests for Gaza at the Oscars was predictable. Artists, musicians, and actors who wore a pin symbolizing a call for a ceasefire in Israel\u2013Palestine are being called antisemitic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d director Jonathan Glazer, however, went further in his Oscars acceptance speech: He actually said something. After winning the Academy Award for best international film, Glazer objected that his own Jewishness and the memory of the Holocaust were \u201cbeing hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October \u2014 whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The largest offense here, if the backlash is to be believed, was that Glazer dared speak of context \u2014 of the Israeli occupation. He was so bold as to suggest that history did not begin on October 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a letter<\/a> signed by more than 900 people, described as Hollywood \u201ccreatives and professionals,\u201d and published Monday made clear: The very word \u201coccupation\u201d was off limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe use of words like \u2018occupation\u2019 to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history,\u201d the letter said, never mind that the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights, has been recognized as such by the United Nations since 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

But the letter went on to say that \u201coccupation\u201d did more than just distort history, it invoked history\u2019s worst antisemitic tropes: \u201cIt gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The indisputable fact of Israeli occupation on Palestinian land is now apparently a \u201cblood libel\u201d: a millennia-old antisemitic canard, which rose to prominence in the Middle Ages, that Jews murder Christians to use their blood for cultish rituals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be against virtually any policy that Israel can claim to justify as self-defense would be antisemitic.<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

By the letter\u2019s logic, it would therefore be \u201cblood libel\u201d to oppose virtually any Israeli policy, from permanent control of all Palestinians \u201cfrom the river to the sea<\/a>\u201d \u2014 which is what Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he wants \u2014 to what human rights groups have recognized as an apartheid system. To be against virtually any policy that Israel can claim to justify as self-defense would be antisemitic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that were not enough, the letter is extraordinary in the sheer extent of its denialism. \u201cIsrael is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas,\u201d the authors wrote. Unmentioned, however, is that Israeli forces have killed over 31,000 people, including 13,000 children, decimated every form<\/a> of civilian infrastructure<\/a>, brought Gaza to the brink of mass starvation, and displaced over 1.7 million people \u2014 to say nothing of the credible reports of journalists and academics being individually targeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, these people are Palestinians: a word that the Hollywood letter doesn\u2019t explicitly bar, but that nonetheless goes unmentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n