An article comparing Jenna Ortega to Kanye West over their purportedly shared “antisemitic hate” has sparked a spirited debate on social media.
West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, has been at the center of a storm of controversy in recent months, after making a string of antisemitic comments. During an appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars on December 1, West praised genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler and defended the Nazis.
The rapper, 45, continued to do so in his interview with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes last month, before saying that only those who “believe in Jesus Christ” should be permitted to hold positions of power in the United States.
Jenna Ortega on November 13, 2022, in Los Angeles, California, and Kanye West on March 11, 2022, also in Los Angeles. An article comparing Ortega to West for their purportedly shared “antisemitic hate” has sparked debate on social media.VIVIEN KILLILEA/GETTY IMAGES FOR IMDB;/RONALD MARTINEZ/GETTY IMAGESNEWSWEEK NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP >
Musician West’s antisemitic comments also included posts that led to him being temporarily locked out of his accounts on Twitter and Instagram. West’s Twitter account was permanently suspended last month after he posted an image of the Star of David with a swastika inside.
Wednesday star Ortega, 20, was compared to West in an article published by The Times of Israel on December 14, bearing the headline: “Jenna Ortega vs. Kanye: Whose antisemitic hate is worse?”
At issue, wrote U.S.-based journalist Dan Margolis, was a link that Ortega shared in the midst of a Twitter thread about helping people in various parts of the world.
“We must never give up on the people of Ukraine, Yemen, Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Syria… the list goes on unfortunately,” she started her thread, shared back in March. “For anyone who is willing & wanting to contribute any way they can, I want to form a thread with information.”
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After posting links to various resources to help people in need, Ortega shared a link to an organization called Decolonize Palestine.
“Decolonize? Was this a clumsy attempt at supporting a two-state solution?” Margolis wrote. “I clicked the link. And I was horrified.”
Margolis described the website as promoting “extremist propaganda,” adding that it is “advocating for the same position Hamas holds: abolition of the State of Israel—the world’s only Jewish state, existing only in part of the land to which Jews are indigenous. The site tells a fictional story in which Jews from Europe were and are foreign invaders who violently displaced a pacific Palestinian people.”
Earlier in the article, Margolis noted that Ortega “presumably sincerely believes that antisemitism is evil, no less so than sexism, homophobia, hatred of Muslims, or other forms of racism and xenophobia. The idea that she promotes anti-Jewish causes would likely make her shudder.”
“The problem is that, like millions of other well meaning Americans, she has no real understanding of antisemitism, and therefore is unlikely to recognize it in at least some of its forms,” he added. “And, also like millions of other Americans, she likely doesn’t do much investigation into a cause before she posts it to social media.”
Screenshots of the article’s headline have been circulated on Twitter in the weeks since it was initially published, sparking debate among the platform’s users.
In a post that went viral on Monday, one Twitter user wrote: “Kanye: ‘I like Hitler,’Jenna Ortega: ‘Palestinians deserve to live,’ The Times of Israel: [‘Jenna Ortega vs. Kanye: Whose antisemitic hate is worse?’]”
“Tired of people who can’t differentiate criticism of a state from criticism of an ethnic group,” said another. “I guarantee you that if you verbally attack at my state I won’t call you Islamophobic. If you say ‘Kurds deserve to live’ I won’t think you support terrorism.”
Another responded to the headline with a question of their own, asking “which is worse: Kanye’s love and admiration for Hitler or Jenna Ortega’s support for the oppressed people of Palestine?”
“As a Jew bulls*** like this enrages me so bad,” commented another. “This is why it’s hard to call out real antisemitism because it gets conflated [with] Israel’s agenda. Palestinian rights =/= antisemitism. No one committed hate crimes because of Wednesday’s ‘love everyone’ message, but they sure did re Ye’s.”
However, a number of Twitter users spoke in defense of the article, with one stating that “the issue was that [Ortega] linked to a website that depicted the I/P conflict in rather antisemitic ways, which it ascribed to Ortega’s naïveté rather than malice. So yes, bad headline, but it’s not like ToI is the only news site to do that.”
Another urged social media users joining in the criticism of the headline to actually read the article in full, so they can “see what Ortega shared and why it’s dangerous hate-filled propaganda.”
“I dunno, linking to the website calling for the destruction of Israel is not similar to ‘Palestinians deserve to live,'” tweeted another.
Newsweek has contacted representatives of Ortega and The Times of Israel for comment.
In his article, Margolis explained that he focused entirely on Jenna Ortega “because she is an extreme example. There are many others who have taken on Hamas’s talking points, such as the Bella Hadid, Emma Watson, John Oliver, and Trevor Noah.
“None of the entertainers mentioned above have called for the elimination of the State of Israel. Only Ortega, who actually seems nicer than the others, has done that (probably without even realizing it). She seems to be one of the most genuinely well-meaning people, and yet she was the one to post the most genuinely evil piece of anti-Zionist propaganda and broadcast it to more people than there are Jews on Earth.”
He concluded that “even when combined with good will and a lack of ill intent, [there] is no excuse to post propaganda aimed against an extremely small minority group. Hopefully Ms. Ortega and others like her—there’s no hope for Kanye or Kyrie [Irving] types—will try to learn more about what they post—and who they could harm—in the future.”
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/
