Harry Potter actress Emma Watson has posted a message of solidarity with Palestinians on Instagram.
Reposting a graphic from the Bad Activist Collective, the image reads "Solidarity is a verb", written over a photo of demonstrators taken at a Free Palestine rally.
The post is captioned with a quote from scholar Sara Ahmed: "Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future.
"Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground."
Watson's Instagram is no longer directly run by her. According to her biography, it "has been taken over by an anonymous feminist collective".
The post has been criticised by Gilad Erdan, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations.
Erdan tweeted: "Fiction may work in Harry Potter but it does not work in reality. If it did, the magic used in the wizarding world could eliminate the evils of Hamas (which oppresses women & seeks the annihilation of Israel) and the PA (which supports terror). I would be in favour of that!"
Watson is not the first international celebrity to stand for Palestine. In 2021, Palestinian-Dutch model Bella Hadid marched in the New York protest against the violence in Palestine and regularly uses her social media platform to share quotes and resources in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
In 2019, singer John Legend said: "It is a progressive point of view to speak up for the rights of Palestinians.”
In 2021, actress and activist Susan Sarandon wrote in a tweet: "Standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are facing ethnic cleansing and being terrorised at the hands of the Israeli government and Jewish settler organisations.
“The world is watching.”
In September, Watson was among a collection of British celebrities to call on British ministers to rescue Afghanistan's creative professionals. This also included Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sir Ian McKellen, Colin Firth, Stephen Fry, Sam Mendes and Elif Shafak.
The group wrote a letter to The Times titled, "Safe passage plea for Afghan performers", demanding that the British government open a "humanitarian corridor" to help artists, writers and filmmakers escape the country, which has been taken over by the Taliban.
