Natalie Portman was not just born in Israel; she maintains dual citizenship in Israel. As in, she's an Israeli citizen as well as an American citizen. As in, Netanyahu represents a country that is her own. So it would behoove those of you who are so "appalled" by her refusal to share the stage with him for an award ceremony to at least recognize that: you are not fighting for Israel and you are by no means fighting for my community. All you're doing is attacking a citizen's decision to oppose her own Prime Minister. I can only wonder what these people think my lack of support for Trump makes me.
And what I'm getting from a lot of critics is that she's "boycotting" an award, which means she "supports BDS," that great bogeyman of college campuses. Except that BDS is a movement; it doesn't encompass every political action opposing anything going on in Israel. It seems like the only thing people understand about the BDS movement is that it opposes the Israeli government and boycotts are involved. In reality, BDS is a specific movement with specific goals. There is more than one movement fighting problems in Israel, and they don't all support the same tactics, viewpoints, interpretation of current events, or even cover the same topic.
Netanyahu is a wildly controversial leader within both the Jewish community and in Israel, with approval ratings about as erratic as Trump's. Also like Trump, he is a right-wing blow-hard in the middle of a massive corruption investigation with a history of disproportionate responses. His watch has also seen a rise in anti-African racist policies. But I don't see a lot of people recognizing that. Instead, people want to make everything so unbelievably simple when it comes to Israel, as if there's such a thing as a country with simple politics.
This is why people like me get so frustrated when trying to discuss Israel. Because people want to pretend any conversation involving Israel must be about Zionism. It is a pathetic strawman that got boring years ago. Don't worry, though, I just love it when corrupt politicians dismiss my concerns to save their jobs and American goyim use that as a justification tell me I'm "self-loathing." The lack of self-awareness is spectacularly entertaining. On the flip side, you get the people who want to view Israel as a black-and-white bad guy, with no room to discuss that massive gray areas, constant power struggles, and the legitimate dangers caused by the fact that Hamas is such a powerful political organization.
Everyone's black-and-white readings of what is going on over there is helping no one, and everyone's refusal to even consider why an Israeli citizen might take issue with the leader of one of her countries is yet another example of this. Netanyahu is a real politician in a real country, and I'm really starting to wonder if people recognize that Israel is a country and not just an abstract idea. It is a country with its own political system, good and bad politicians, positives and negatives.
And those of us who actually know people over there and have a horse in this race would really appreciate it if you could all get out of your own asses for five minutes and recognize that.