Actor John Cusack has come under fire for tweeting an antisemitic meme before deleting the tweet and later blaming it on a "bot". The image contained a quote, and a hand emblazoned with a blue star of David, which is shown crushing a crowd of people.
The quote was erroneously attributed to French satirist Voltaire but is in fact from white nationalist and Holocaust-denier, Kevin Alfred Strom. It reads: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
Also written on the picture are the words, "Is it not obvious?"
[[imagecaption|| Credit: Twitter]]
"Follow the money," Cusack wrote alongside the image which - rather than retweet through Twitter - he uploaded himself, crediting Twitter user Mahmoud AbuYusef Tamimi and tagging @GottaBernNow.
Remember the actor from the 2000 movie High Fidelity?
[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/NvjkfiK6-sKUnNGKf.mp4||NvjkfiK6]]
Although the Say Anything actor later deleted the tweet, journalist Yashar Ali posted a screenshot of it to his own Twitter page, writing "This is disgusting." The deleted tweet has since garnered widespread condemnation on the social media platform.
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1140762303438176256]]
In a later tweet, Cusack claimed he thought the meme was a pro-Palestinian post and blamed it on a "bot".
"A bot got me," the High Fidelity star tweeted. "I thought I was endorsing a pro-Palestinian [sic] justice retweet – of an earlier post – it came I think from a different source – shouldn't have retweeted."
But unfortunately for Cusack, a number of people weren't buying his blame-shifting.
"A bot got you? Yashar Ali wrote in response. "You defended your posting of it in several quote tweets before you deleted."
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1140773114948784128]]
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/CarlyPildis/status/1140763930593255426]]
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1140805656623980544]]
[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/FirenzeMike/status/1140801077538897924]]
As criticism of the actor continued, Cusack posted an apology, explaining that: "In reaction to Palestinian human rights under Israeli occupation, an issue that concerns anyone fighting for justice, I [retweeted] and quickly deleted an image that's harmful to both Jewish and Palestinian friends, and for that I'm sorry."
He added, "the use of the [Star of David], even if it depicts the state of Israel - committing human rights violations – when combined with anti-Jewish tropes about power – is anti-Semitic and anti-Semitism has no place in any rational political dialogue."