The actor Javier Bardem was all over the place at last night’s Emmys. First, he said that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza, before accusing it of “apartheid” and detailing his commitment to a “commercial and diplomatic blockade and … sanctions on Israel”. Apparently concerned about optics, however – Bardem is an Oscar-winner married to an Oscar-winner, after all – he went on to insist that he’s not targeting “individuals by their identity”, before adding – bafflingly – that film companies and institutions “that are involved in whitewashing or justifying the genocide” are fair game.
And then there was Bardem’s keffiyeh.
Nothing better exposes the dangerous shallowness of the Spanish actor’s animus towards Israel than the sad-looking keffiyeh – a scarf associated with Yasser Arafat and the murderous Palestinian “resistance” movement – wrapped carelessly around his neck last night. Paired with a dark suit, dark shirt and self-satisfied grin, the keffiyeh was at once entirely unstylish and deeply sinister.
Unquestionably talented and – at least in his early years – exquisitely sexy, the keffiyeh not only diminished Bardem’s hard-earned star power, reducing him to a virtue-signalling drone of questionable taste, it showed his ignorance of the cause he claims to espouse. Not only did he look as bad as he sounded, he personified the commodified activism that has come to define the almost two years since the Hamas invasion into Israel ignited the Gaza war.
There is nothing wrong with the rich and famous taking on pet causes. But folks like Bardem would do well to stick to saving actual pets. It’s not that he is wrong to have an opinion – there is suffering in Gaza, and plenty of Israelis have themselves criticised the actions of their government.
The problem with the likes of Bardem is their moral blindness. Rather than focus their fury on the terrorist entity that caused and continues to cause Gazans’ suffering – Hamas – Bardem seems only to be concerned about Israel. Rather than give Hamas their rightful billing as the instigator of the current tragedy, Bardem appears to have reduced the group to a bit player in a horror story that it could easily end. And end now. Israel knows this. Bardem should know this. And most crucially, Hamas knows this.
The actor Javier Bardem was all over the place at last night’s Emmys. First, he said that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza, before accusing it of “apartheid” and detailing his commitment to a “commercial and diplomatic blockade and … sanctions on Israel”. Apparently concerned about optics, however – Bardem is an Oscar-winner married to an Oscar-winner, after all – he went on to insist that he’s not targeting “individuals by their identity”, before adding – bafflingly – that film companies and institutions “that are involved in whitewashing or justifying the genocide” are fair game.
And then there was Bardem’s keffiyeh.
Nothing better exposes the dangerous shallowness of the Spanish actor’s animus towards Israel than the sad-looking keffiyeh – a scarf associated with Yasser Arafat and the murderous Palestinian “resistance” movement – wrapped carelessly around his neck last night. Paired with a dark suit, dark shirt and self-satisfied grin, the keffiyeh was at once entirely unstylish and deeply sinister.
Unquestionably talented and – at least in his early years – exquisitely sexy, the keffiyeh not only diminished Bardem’s hard-earned star power, reducing him to a virtue-signalling drone of questionable taste, it showed his ignorance of the cause he claims to espouse. Not only did he look as bad as he sounded, he personified the commodified activism that has come to define the almost two years since the Hamas invasion into Israel ignited the Gaza war.
There is nothing wrong with the rich and famous taking on pet causes. But folks like Bardem would do well to stick to saving actual pets. It’s not that he is wrong to have an opinion – there is suffering in Gaza, and plenty of Israelis have themselves criticised the actions of their government.
The problem with the likes of Bardem is their moral blindness. Rather than focus their fury on the terrorist entity that caused and continues to cause Gazans’ suffering – Hamas – Bardem seems only to be concerned about Israel. Rather than give Hamas their rightful billing as the instigator of the current tragedy, Bardem appears to have reduced the group to a bit player in a horror story that it could easily end. And end now. Israel knows this. Bardem should know this. And most crucially, Hamas knows this.