Hillary Clinton isn’t wrong about the role that TikTok and other social media play in the spread of anti-Israel propaganda, but it’s clear now that there is something worse than brain-melting short-form agitprop: the elite celebrities of the arts.
Once a certain coterie of actors and musicians and writers decided to spend most of their time signing vapid open letters about Israel, it was inevitable that they would put their names on one so aggressively ignorant that it would discredit everything they’ve ever said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And now they have.
Margaret Atwood, Ian McKellen, Richard Branson, Sting, Brian Eno, and of course Mark Ruffalo and Sally Rooney—among many others—have announced their support for a campaign to free arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti from the Israeli prison in which he is serving consecutive life sentences for the murder of innocents.
I have written before about why freeing Barghouti is a silly idea supported by silly people, but it is now clear that this campaign is still growing in popularity and will continue to do so. Indeed, the campaign has specifically chosen to appropriate Nelson Mandela’s name in a transparent attempt to launder Barghouti’s legacy of evil.
“History shows us that cultural voices can shift the course of politics,” says Eno. “Just as global solidarity helped free Nelson Mandela, we all have the power to accelerate the day that Marwan Barghouti walks free. His release would mark a turning point in this long struggle and bring much-needed hope to all of us.”
Well that’s just about the worst thing a person can say about Nelson Mandela, and I don’t know what the man did to deserve the insult.
Anyone in the public who might have taken this crew’s previous nonsense seriously might want to reconsider now that these “cultural voices” have explicitly equated Mandela with an unrepentant terrorist convicted for organizing the drive-by shooting of a Greek Orthodox monk. That’s just one of the civilian deaths for which Barghouti is behind bars.
And it’s not only the “cultural voices” who discredit themselves. The Guardian article about the campaign is just as embarrassing. “Barghouti, 66, has spent 23 years in prison after what legal experts described as a flawed trial,” writes diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour. But that is fantasy. An old but undistinguished group for global parliamentarians complained that Israeli courts had no right to put Barghouti on trial because he should’ve had parliamentary immunity—an argument the Israeli court dispensed with easily when Barghouti’s team asserted as much.
The trial itself was unusual, however, in one way: Barghouti instructed his team to abstain from his own defense because he refused to recognize the court. Still, an Israeli court official ensured the defendant’s rights were upheld throughout the trial. And Barghouti was exonerated of most of the charges against him. I don’t expect Annie Lennox to know all this, but perhaps a newspaper editor ought to.
Then there is this incredible sentence: “Israel’s persistent refusal to release him, including in the recent prisoner swap that followed an October ceasefire in the Gaza war, does not appear to be linked to any intelligence assessment that he would pose a threat to Israel’s security but instead to the influence he may wield in building unity and a momentum to a two state-solution.”
Or—hear me out—perhaps Israel’s “persistent refusal to release him” has something to do with the fact that he is serving out his sentences for murder. That’s how trials work. Unlike, say, the International Criminal Court, Israel’s courts are real courts.
And another thing: Isn’t it the contention of the pro-Palestinian activist universe that Israel is the one holding up a two-state solution? If so, why would Israel need to release Barghouti—or anyone? By their own logic, Palestinian advocates would consider Mahmoud Abbas a man of peace who is simply waiting to sign a deal. Isn’t he a legitimate and credible partner? The only reason the Palestinians would have to be united under a new leader is that they are not currently supportive of a peace deal with Israel. And that can’t be right, can it?
