Why the C-list loves Zionism

on Palestinian liberation

Whenever a celebrity makes the rounds for supporting the Zionist entity, Twitter leftists like to point out that the most noise tends to come from the most mid among them. When you’re C-list—at best—execrable politics, the logic goes, comes with the territory. See: Debra Messing, Mayim Bialik, the Good Wife, etc.

While it’s a tempting conclusion to draw, I think there’s another explanation. A-listers and Oscar winners like The Rock, Natalie Portman, and Jerry Seinfeld are also public about their Zionism, but the Michael Rapaports¹ of the world are the ones building brands off of it. Like JK Rowling, who was already a billionaire before transphobia became the brain worm that Ratatouilles her smear campaigns against Algerian athletes, Gal Gadot endorses genocide for the love of the game. Downstream of heavy hitters like them, however, are thousands of shills, opportunists, and mercenaries carving out their niche in an attention economy that rewards outrage, normalizes fascism, and embraces the dehumanization the thousands—possibly hundreds of thousands—of human beings who have been slaughtered since last October as not just the status quo, but emblematic of America’s moral righteousness.

I first recognized this phenomenon when it started cropping up around the moral/sex panic that’s brought transphobia to a fever pitch here in the Anglosphere. How many journalists, writers, comedians, artists, influencers, and content creators have pivoted to virulent transphobia as the industry crumbles around them? The media jobs are going away as worsening labor conditions and stagnant wages are the norm across the board, while most of the country struggles to survive backbreaking debt, skyrocketing inflation, and the criminalization of homelessness amidst record housing insecurity. And it’s not just those of us in production who are being affected: as performers, even the big names we presume are loaded, become even more vulnerable, other income streams are needed.

I’m not saying that people like Rapaport aren’t genuinely genocidal ghouls. But even if I were, why would it matter? Your heart is your actions. Whatever motivates you, whether it’s a quick buck, honest racism, or a desire for Christ’s return to earth (this was the Zionism I was raised on), baying for the slaughter of Palestinians is white supremacy and colonialism, pure and simple.

It’s for this reason that I wanted to share some recent writing and reportage about Palestinian liberation I’ve come across lately. If these writers and culture workers aren’t Palestinian themselves, then they’re accomplices in their struggle in a context that censures all conscience with the most unctuous of liberal propaganda and the most violent of political repression.

• Many of us have been following Peabody-winner Bisan Atef Owda on Instagram for months, if not longer. After Owda was nominated for an Emmy earlier this week, 150 entertainment industry “leaders” (including Messing) demanded that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) rescind the nomination. Here’s how NATAS responded.

• For Vittles, Mira Mattar wrote a powerful essay on starvation as a tool of genocide. Gaza as microcosm, laboratory, and proving ground of capitalism’s ravages—including climate collapse—is an evergreen observation worth repeating here.

• I’m not big on poetry, but I was riveted by scholar Marina Magloire’s exploration of the Black feminist falling-out between June Jordan and Audre Lorde (feat. Adrienne Rich) over Zionism. “Jordan is lesser known nationally and internationally than Lorde,” Magloire writes, “and it seems to me that her decades of unwavering support for the Palestinian people is partly responsible.”

• Vicky Osterweil’s always-astute coverage of the American political situation and resistance to fascism leaves me foundering in despair and brimming with hope (for those stuck in despair mode, here’s one she wrote on how to get organized/start organizing).

What these people are saying is important, which means supporting them in material ways—with money, with exposure, with solidarity—is important, too. If you can, I hope you will.

Reminder that I’ll send you a free month of subscriber-only DAVID content if you screenshot your donation to any of fundraiser for Palestinians trying to survive within Gaza or relocate to safety. Gaza Funds is one place to get started.

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1. The actor who famously looks like he “wakes up and dies every day.”