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Daily News Analysis

Emma Watson’s stand and another political retreat for Israel

Crescent International

On January 13, several film stars issued a statement in support of Emma Watson’s backing of the Palestinian cause.

They included Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Gael García Bernal and Viggo Mortensen.

While a statement in support of Palestinians struggling for their fundemental rights will not have an immediate effect, its long-term positive repercussions are undeniable.

For decades, Palestinians and people of West Asia have been portrayed on Western-dominated entertainment industry screens as perpetrators of unjustified and irrational violence.

Jack Shaheen, a researcher and writer who spent his life battling stereotypes of Arab-Americans and Muslims in pop culture, once noted that bigotry and prejudice of Arabs is one form of bigotry which is accepted by the American mainstream.

This phenomenon long predates 9/11.

Demonization of Muslims and Arabs in the Western-dominated entertainment industry facilitated Zionist Israel’s political smearing of Palestinians.

The masses, consciously and subconsciously, associated Palestinian struggle with illegitimate forms of violence lacking all rationality.

This, however, is slowly but surely changing.

The latest episode with Emma Watson’s backing of the Palestinian cause shows that the Zionist occupation of Palestine can no longer be subjected to Israeli filtrations and slander.

The Palestinian cause has managed to break the framework of neo-colonialist narrative and tell its own story, on its own terms.

This, however, is not the main point relating to the latest pro-Palestinian position from Hollywood.

The major tectonic shift is that Israel will not be able to return the once completely one-sided perspective on the Palestinian conflict.

For more than 10 years now, the Israeli narrative has been on the defensive.

Careful observation of Zionist politicking over the past decade shows that Israeli narrative is constantly on the defensive.

Israelis try to justify their occupation of Palestine within a framework that is no longer determined by them.

When viewed in isolation, Emma Watson’s support of the Palestinian cause would appear insignificant, within the broader context of Israel’s regional retreat, it manifests something bigger.

The reality is that Israel is a subsidized project.

Without massive monetary, military, and political support from NATO regimes it will not be able to retain its occupation of Palestine.

Societies in NATO member countries no longer view the situation in Palestine through the Israeli prism.

Emma Watson’s support for Palestinians reflects this reality.

Zionist Israel will no longer be able to change or reframe this reality, as it was effortlessly able to do in the past.


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