So you may have already heard: Emma Watson, the actress who rose to astronomical levels of fame after playing Hermione in the Harry Potter franchise, posted the following in solidarity with the palestinian Arabs:

It seems Snape got to her.
One of my first reactions to this was this offends me as a grammarian.
But joking aside, Emma Watson has over 64 million followers on Instagram, no doubt mostly young people. Whether or not you feel she is qualified to comment on the Middle East conflict (she no doubt isn’t), this post – and other anti-Israel ones from celebrities with huge followings – pose a huge problem. We can speak ad nauseum about how bad our “PR” is, and we can make suggestions to improve it, but at the end of the day, this kind of thing hurts us.
Speaking about hurting us, so does this:
10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite.@EmmaWatson pic.twitter.com/Qaqkx36JSg
— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) January 3, 2022
While I appreciate Danny Danon’s work at the UN, this tweet is unhelpful and plays into the hands of those who claim we weaponize antisemitism. Expressing solidarity with palestinian Arabs over Israelis – especially right after rockets were fired in the direction of Tel Aviv – is really disgusting. But it does not portend necessarily to antisemitism, even more so when we are speaking about a celebrity. For celebrities tend to latch on to “trendy” causes and virtue signal the night (and day) away. True, the vast majority of Israel-haters are actual antisemites, but I prefer to use actual proof of it before accusing someone of antisemitism.
We certainly need to do a better job getting the truth out there – since we have the truth on our side – but facts are not enough. The other side speaks to people’s emotions better than we do and that is a huge reason the Emma Watsons of the world are solidaritying with the palestinian Arabs.
Update: Here Emma, I fixed it for you
