In his speech upon receiving the award, British director Jonathan Gellers rejected that his Jewishness be used to justify stripping people of their humanity and permitting their killing (agencies)

The annual Oscars telecast in Los Angeles is no ordinary TV show. Every year - on a night that seems to last longer than normal - the theater is filled for hours with the glamor of Hollywood's most esteemed celebrities, interspersed with extravagant performances, in what has become a global television event. Movie stars themselves present the golden and highly valuable acting Oscars to their peers. Academy Award nominations are officially for those considered the producers, directors and stars of the best films released in the previous year. The broadcast begins with pomp and celebration with the arrival of Hollywood's elite.

After setting foot on the ground in luxury cars, cameras follow them on the red carpet, wearing designer clothes worth thousands of dollars and sparkling jewels designed by famous brands.

The telecast of the 96th Annual Academy Awards broadcast on March 14, 2024 was watched by up to 19.5 million people. As the audience watched, the people celebrated that night spoke directly and unscripted, and what they said was very important.

The next day, the media is usually preoccupied with what has been said about what the presenters and attendees look and wear, who behaved poorly, and who won an Oscar. But when British director Jonathan Glazer won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for The Zone of Interest, his acceptance statement turned the celebrity world upside down, drowning out much of the hubbub that followed the telecast.

The film "The Zone of Interest" offers a new look at philosopher Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil. The film deals with the daily lives of people complicit in horrific crimes, depicting the family of Nazi leader Rudolf Höss, who oversaw the Auschwitz concentration camp, and how he and his ambitious, spoiled wife enjoyed a safe and comfortable home with their children playing on their property. Right at the wall of their garden, chimneys spew dark fumes from the burning bodies in the crematorium.

A look at the past and a statement about the present

When he took the stage, Glazer explained that the film is a critical look at the past, but also a statement about the present. He told the audience: “All our choices are made to reflect and confront us in the present. I am not saying look at what they did then, but rather look at what we are doing now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads in the worst cases. It has shaped all of our past and present.”

Some media commentators misinterpreted his words, in some cases intentionally. Referring to the victims of October 7 and the Israeli attack on Gaza, Glazer told the Oscars audience: “Now we stand here as people who refute their Judaism and the Holocaust hijacked by the occupation that led to the death of so many innocent people.”

With these words, he expressed the feelings of many Jews who demanded a ceasefire and worked to stop the genocide in Gaza. Glazer opposes his Judaism being used as a weapon to support genocide.

Glazer's speech was far from the institutional consensus in the United States and the United Kingdom, where prominent and influential Jewish community leaders still support any military actions Israel takes against Gaza, no matter how heinous they may be. They did what Glazer refuses to do, which was to use their Jewishness; To justify the mass killing of civilians and crimes against humanity. He said: The lesson of the Holocaust is that stripping people of their humanity and culture should never again be used to justify evil.

The demonization of Palestinians reached extreme levels after October 7, when Israeli officials described them as “non-human beings” and “animals.” More recently, this personification was fully amplified in a New York Times article titled “Understanding the Middle East through the Animal Kingdom” by Thomas Friedman, who compared the targets of US bombing campaigns to insects, causing Jim Nourikas of “Fair” to say: “It’s a species.” "A metaphor historically used by propagandists to justify genocide."

Israeli perpetrators and propagandists of genocide replicated Nazi rhetoric used against Jews who were likened to a host of despised creatures, including spiders and parasitic insects. Genocide Watch lists such “dehumanization” as a stage of genocide, where the target group is “equated with animals, insects or diseases” in a process that “overcomes the natural human revulsion to killing.”

Glazer concluded his speech with a question: “With all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?” Many who resisted genocide were previously punished in Hollywood. “Hollywood has become accustomed to a consensus in its admiration and loyalty to Israel,” Emmy Award-winning actor David Clennon, a long-time supporter of Palestinian rights, told The Guardian. “A new generation of show business is beginning to challenge that prevailing ideology, and of course the Guard "The old one will do everything in his power to intimidate them."

This intimidation included the expulsion of actress Melissa Barrera from the movie “Scream, Part 7,” produced by Spyglass Media. Barrera described the Israeli attacks as "genocide" and said: "They are brutally killing innocent Palestinians, mothers and children under the pretext of destroying Hamas."

Maha Dakhil was one of the top managers at Hollywood's influential talent agency, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), until she criticized Israel's war on Gaza on social media, calling it "genocide." She was allowed to remain at the agency and continue representing her longtime clients, but resigned in response to criticism.

Jews against Jews

Glazer and others calling for a ceasefire pose a real threat to members of the Jewish community who have been using their Judaism specifically as a weapon to achieve political goals in the service of Israel and its decades-long project to remove the Palestinian people from their historic homeland. They, along with the official media, continue to cover Israel despite the international human rights community’s declaration that it is an apartheid state. It is also a country that the International Court of Justice has ruled faces a plausible charge of genocide.

Glazer was criticized by Newsweek editor Batya Ungar-Sargun, who distorted his speech and accused him of "moral rot"; Because he denied his Judaism, but instead he was rejecting how his Judaism, the Judaism of another people, and the Holocaust were being distorted by genocidal apologists.

And as Jonathan Cook has confirmed, Ungar Sargon must have known that Glazer's speech was the most listened to and discussed moment at the Oscars. People heard what Glazer said for themselves, and they are unlikely to believe what Ungar Sargun and others said.

The US state media has long been intent on supporting the Walled Garden and protecting the world's people from the horrors imposed by war criminals on the other side, so we must listen to those like Glazer who are trying to tear down the wall; To show us the truth about what is happening behind it.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.