In a time where it’s frightening to notice that a childhood favorite is trending on social media, Say Anything actor John Cusack shared an anti-Semitic meme, defended it, and then blamed it on a bot.
The Daily Beast says that after retweeting a meme with a giant hand with a Star of David on the sleeve crushing a group of tiny people accompanying a Voltaire quote, and then defending it after it was widely criticized, Cusack insisted it was a “bot” who shared the questionable tweet.
The tweet was quickly deleted after Cusack first defended the sentiment.
“A bot got me- I thought I was endorsing a pro Palestinian justice retweet – of an earlier post – it came I think from a different source – Shouldn’t Have retweeted…”
But while Cusack says it was a mistake, people on Twitter were wondering why the actor seemed to add his own line to it by suggesting that people should follow the money to understand why people support Israel.
Ironically, Cusack is a big Bernie Sanders supporter and also tagged someone else with a pro-Sanders Twitter handle when he called out Elizabeth Warren about her support of Israel, referencing a link from 2014.
“Oh no… RT @ GottaBernNow : Elizabeth Warren Defends Israeli Shelling Of Gaza Schools. From 2014 but says a lot about a person, don’t you think?”
Mediaite reported that Cusack said “my bad on a retweet of an alt-right image,” but not everyone was so sympathetic, especially after he said that people should “recognize Palestinian [sic] are forced to live in an open-air prison. It’s not anti semetic [sic] to say that,” discounting the image of the Star of David used to make the point.
One Twitter user pointed out that the Voltaire quote itself is not anti-Semitic, but the meme is, and the issue is that Cusack didn’t seem to understand the difference.
Many people commented that they were disappointed to see why John Cusack was trending on social media while others commented that they were blocked by the actor on Twitter after commenting on the retweeted memes.
But soon after the storm started brewing on Twitter , Cusack apologized and included a link explaining how anti-Semitism hurts all of society. He also explained why his post was incorrect and said it did not accurately reflect his feelings.
“The use of the star, even if it depicts the state of Israel- committing human rights violations – when combined with anti Jewish tropes about power- is antisemitic & antisemitism has no place in any rational political dialoge [sic].”
