(JNS) In a May 10 interview on “60 Minutes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained bitterly about social media: “We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost—I would say, it correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media.”A key function of this trend is the way critics of Israel use—and often misuse—celebrities. Let’s look at one example.
Last month, memes began appearing all over social media with a quote from actor Richard Gere: “There’s no defense of this occupation. Settlements are such an absurd provocation … .”
The problem is that this statement is both false and it’s nearly a decade old; Newsweek featured this exact quote in an article on March 13, 2017.
Gere has, by and large, managed to escape criticism for his opposition to Israel’s self-defense. Fellow actors Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem and Susan Sarandon have been harsh attackers of Israel during its fight against Iranian proxies and missile threats from Hezbollah following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist invasion. They...
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