huffingtonpost - 6 hours ago

Miriam Margolyes pictured during her recent interview on The Late, Late ShowMiriam Margolyes has opened up about losing friends and family members due to her staunch support of Palestine.The always-opinionated Bafta winner, who is Jewish, has been a vocal advocate for the Palestinian cause for some time now, which she was asked about during an interview on Ireland’s The Late Late Show last week.When host Patrick Kielty remarked that Miriam had “lost a lot of family and friends over this” issue, she agreed: “Yes, I have. It hurts when people that you’re fond of don’t want to talk to you anymore, because they feel you’re a traitor. They have to do what they do, and I have to accept it.“And I mustn’t hate them. I must try to understand, because if I hate, I’m as bad as they are, and I don’t want to be. But I tell you what, North London is a pretty tricky place to negotiate at the moment.”On why it’s so important to her to speak out on the subject of Palestine, Mirian explained: “I’m Jewish, and it’s very important that people realise that all Jewish people are not killers. They’re not bastards. It’s not like that.“This is just a section of the Israeli people that are like that. Not Jewish people. And I want that to be known and understood and clear.”She continued: “What happened in Gaza was utterly wrong, wicked and terrifying – the response to the Hamas attack. The Hamas attack was terrible, of course it was. But it came from 70 years of oppression – of Israelis being horrible.“And I saw it myself. I was there in Israel and I saw it. I saw how they treated Palestinians, and it’s wrong.”The former Call The Midwife star added: “I don’t want us to be changed by Hitler, by the Holocaust, into nasty people. I won’t have it. I won’t be changed.“My heart is open to anyone who needs help, succour, caring, and [people in Palestine] need that.”Last year, Miriam – who acquired Australian citizenship more than a decade ago – teamed up with the Jewish Council Of Australia, for a video message in which she called on her fellow Jewish people to “shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire” in Gaza.“Of course I condemn the Hamas action, of course I do,” she said in the clip. “But what we are doing, Jewish people over in Israel, is shocking, embarrassing and wicked and I cannot understand why all Jewish people, particularly members of synagogues, do not want immediately to stop what is going on.”Miriam also maintained that it is “not antisemitic to have a different opinion on the wartime actions now”.The indomitable Miriam Margolyes OBE has a message in support of the Jewish Council! She calls for all of us Jews to “shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire” pic.twitter.com/UgwRSusq84 Jewish Council of Australia (@jewishcouncilAU) April 5, 2024More recently, Miriam gave an interview to The Big Issue, in which she described the conflict in Gaza – which Amnesty International, a United Nations commission of inquiry and several Israeli human rights groups have described as a genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people – as the “big issue” of our time.She told the outlet: “I feel it particularly because I am Jewish – because I know how much wickedness and cruelty were meted out to Jews in my lifetime.“I was born in ’41 at the height of the Holocaust and I cannot bear to think that my people are doing exactly the same thing to another nation – and the nation they are doing it to, the Palestinian nation, were not responsible for the Holocaust and nothing to do with it.″[The Holocaust] was a purely European pl and so, my heart is broken and the terrible thing I have to face is that Hitler won, he changed us. He made us like him.”View this post on InstagramA post shared by Big Issue (@bigissueuk)She later told The Guardian: “People say: ‘You’re just an actor, for fuck’s sake, shut up’. Well, that is a point of view. I don’t happen to share that.“I think that if you have a chance to make an impact for good, to change things, then you should. I think it’s an absolute requirement, and people don’t, out of fear sometimes. They are afraid of being cancelled. You can’t cancel me!”On Monday, US president Donald Trump declared the war in Gaza to be “over” as Israel welcomed the return of the remaining hostages who had been held in the territory for the last two years.A ceasefire has been in place since last Friday after both Israel and Hamas agreed to Trump’s 20-point peace plan.However, experts have cautioned numerous hurdles are still to be cleared before a long-term peace is in place.READ MORE:Miriam Margolyes Has A Blunt Message For Critics Telling Her To Shut Up About PoliticsHarry Potter Star Miriam Margolyes Sticks Up For Younger Cast Members After Recent JK Rowling DramaBBC Removes Unexpected Miriam Margolyes Comment From Catch-Up Service

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