Mick Hartley

Hen Mazzig – How Hating Israel Became a Career Move – looks at all those celebs who’ve managed to build careers, or resurrect faltering careers, by adding their voices to the Israel pile-on. All that’s needed are some mindless sound-bites about the “Palestinian genocide”, or, if you’re Bob Vylan, a catchy chant about “Death, death to the IDF”, and you’re away.

When a Western celebrity’s career stalls, the most reliable career-fixer available right now is loud, extreme hostility to Israel. The path back does not run through coexistence groups, or hostage families, or Israeli and Palestinian peace activists building shared institutions in Jaffa or Haifa. It runs through extremism. Death chants. Concentration camp comparisons broad enough to include everyone except the people who were actually being held in tunnels under Gaza…..

Notice what this kind of activism costs the activist. Nothing. You do not have to fund a hospital. You do not have to learn Arabic or Hebrew. You do not have to sit with a bereaved family or visit a checkpoint or lose a single friend. You post. You wear the keffiyeh on the red carpet. You sign the open letter. The signaling is luxury-tier. The sacrifice is zero.

This is champagne activism. Same shape as champagne socialism. The people who perform it the loudest are the ones who pay nothing for it. Bob Vylan’s chant cost him a UTA contract and bought him an international audience. Kneecap’s visa fight cost them a US tour and bought them a feature film….