John Cusack apologizes for this antisemitic tweet – after explaining why he posted it

In a burst of tweets on Monday (Tuesday, New Zealand time), actor John Cusack is excused several times in front of his 1.6 million followers for retweeting an even anti-Semite – after defending why he had hit sending in the first place.

The offensive tweet, deleted since, featured a black-and-white caricature of a giant hand with a blue Star of David on the sleeve, crushing a crowd of people looking faint beneath it.

This image is accompanied by a quote wrongly attributed to the 18th century French philosopher, Voltaire: "To know who rules over you, you just have to look for who you are not allowed to criticize." The origin of the sentence can be attributed to the white nationalist and neo-Nazi Kevin Alfred Strom, according to United States today.

After clicking retweet with his own words – "Follow the Money" – Cusack was immediately criticized by fans and supporters who recognized the clearly anti-Semitic message of the image.

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the Say anything The actor first claimed (in another deleted tweet) that he had been "caught" by a "bot", which, according to Twitter's collective understanding, meant that the account Cusack had been hacked. This easy denial did not steal.

Cusack later claimed that by "bot" he meant "all right". He then added another explanation – the offensive retweet was intended to criticize Israel's policy against the Palestinians and not to denigrate the Jewish faith as a whole.

After many attempts to explain his position as an anti-Israeli, Cusack finally admitted that the original retweet was actually anti-Semitic.

"The use of the star," he tweeted, "even though it portrays the state of Israel – commits human rights violations – when it is not in the state of Israel. it is combined with an anti-Jewish regime on power – is anti-Semitic and anti-Semitism has no place in a rational political dialogue ".

The actor then showed his followers a film that he had directed in 2002 and titled Max, Which explores the relationship between a Jewish art dealer (played by Cusack) and his young pupil, Adolf Hitler. "I have been interested for years in the intricacies of the history of anti-Semitism and fascism," Cusack tweeted.