Hollywood actor John Cusack disgraced himself with a tweet that even he later acknowledged as being antisemitic.
This is disgusting pic.twitter.com/4b2RlPrNfL
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 17, 2019
The quote attributed to Voltaire is actually from American neo-Nazi, white nationalist, Holocaust denier Kevin Alfred Strom while the image, including a Star of David, speaks for itself. For good measure, Cusack added his own commentary “Follow the money.”
This is an antisemitic tweet. Period.
The Independent, however, chose to muddy the water with its headline and accompanying tweet, referring to the John Cusack antisemitic tweet as “controversial” in its headline and putting the word “antisemitic” in scare quotes in its own tweet:
John Cusack criticised for 'antisemitic' tweet https://t.co/niNSUkuiPD
— The Independent (@Independent) June 18, 2019
Other media did get it right. For example, Sky News:
Why then can’t The Independent ever acknowledge blatantly obvious antisemitism?
As is sadly the norm, one only needs to take a look at the comments under the article to see the type of readership that The Independent appeals to. And it isn’t pretty.
If The Independent were to actually recognize antisemitism, the first place it would find it would be in its own home.
Yet again, further evidence as to why mainstream media such as The Independent should adopt the internationally recognized definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
UPDATE
Possibly as a result of criticism, a subsequent follow up story in The Independent got the headline correct:
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
