“Go, Birds, fuck ICE, and free Palestine.”
That’s how the actress Hannah Einbinder ended her acceptance speech for her first Emmy last night. (She played a struggling writer in the HBO show Hacks.) When pressed by reporters to expand on that final point, Einbinder, in her silvery gown, with the self-righteousness of a million actresses before her, explained that it was her sacred duty as a Jew, and as the newest Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy, to call out the Jewish state.
“I thought it was important to talk about Palestine because it’s an issue that’s very dear to my heart,” she said, her co-star Jean Smart by her side. “I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel, because our religion and our culture is such an important and long-standing. . . institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state.”
And just like that: peace in the Middle East.
Not a single word was uttered during the awards ceremony about the assassination, days before, of Charlie Kirk, arguably the most high-profile killing of a political figure since the ’60s in this country. You know, the one where the Emmys take place, and where its nominees presumably live. What happened to Kirk, in the minds of the actors at the Emmys, was perhaps something that happened online, to someone uncool and on the wrong side of history. Kirk does not exist in their glittering snow globe. But, curiously, Israel looms very large in it.
