The boycott-Israel movement has had only sporadic success in getting celebrities to stay away from the Jewish state. But actress Scarlett Johansson may have provided the anti-Zionists with an easier target by endorsing SodaStream, a company with a factory in Maale Adumim, the Jerusalem suburb that is on the wrong side of the green line and therefore considered an “illegal” settlement particularly deserving of the BDS treatment. As Seth noted on Friday, Oxfam and the Forward scolded Johansson for daring to stick to her endorsement. But the fact that an ad for SodaStream starring Johansson is set to appear during the Super Bowl raises the stakes for what might otherwise be yet another minor skirmish in a low-intensity propaganda war against Israel. As the actress is learning, Israel-bashers are pulling out all the stops in their smear campaign.
One example of this disturbing trend is when Iranian-American author Reza Aslan branded the actress a Nazi in a tweet mocking Johansson’s defense of SodaStream as a model employer that accords equal treatment to both its Jewish and Arab employees. As the Algemeiner reported yesterday, Aslan, who become something of a minor celebrity himself because of criticism of his biography of Jesus as well as his false claims of scholarly credentials, tweeted a fake quote attributed to the actress in which he “quoted” her as defending Hitler’s attack on Poland while linking to a Huffington Post article on the controversy:
Scarlett Johansson: “Adolf is committed to building a bridge to peace between Germany and Poland.”
Aslan subsequently deleted the tweet without apologizing, but it was captured in a screen shot that can be seen at the Algemeiner link.
But the significance of this incident isn’t about Aslan’s heinous use of the standard trope of contemporary anti-Semites in which Jews are deemed Nazis. Rather, the question is whether a lionized film star and celebrity like Johansson is prepared to withstand the kind of abuse for which the BDS movement is notorious.
The dynamics of public relations are such that while minor celebrities can benefit from controversies in which their positions or actions alienate segments of the public, being branded as the face of the settlement movement rather than the sexiest woman alive may hurt Johansson. Though her identification with Israel will probably only enhance her popularity in the United States, the opposite may be true in Europe and elsewhere in the world where anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are both endemic and on the rise. That could mean her films and products she has endorsed may be identified with settlements rather than glamour. That’ a chilling prospect for producers, marketing firms and those who manage her career.
Such commercial concerns have the potential to cut short Johansson’s association with SodaStream. Not only will BDSers treat any severance of ties between the actress and the company as a triumph, it will also make it unlikely that SodaStream will be able to find another high-grossing celebrity to take her place.
In the meantime, Johansson deserves applause for being willing to take the heat for standing up for SodaStream. The attack on SodaStream shows the true face of the BDS movement. They don’t care how good the company is for the regional economy or even the Palestinians who work there. They don’t care that the “settlement” in which it exists would almost certainly remain within Israel if a peace treaty with the Palestinians were to be signed. All they care about is demonizing the very existence of the Jews who live there. As the abuse from Aslan and the rest of the BDS movement shows, that same demonization will apply to anyone, even an Obama-supporting politically correct liberal Democrat like Johansson. Though this may not have been a fight that she would have chosen to engage in, Johansson must now show that she and others prepared to stand with Israel won’t be intimidated.
