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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/fake-feminist-group-zioness-used-rappers-image-without-her-approval">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/fake-feminist-group-zioness-used-rappers-image-without-her-approval</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Fake feminist group Zioness used rapper's
image without her approval</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-01-22T11:53:19+00:00">22 January 2018</span></span>
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<article class="node-23056 node node-blog view-mode-full
node-is-page image-landscape">
<figure id="file-55921" class="media
media-element-container media-figure file file-image
file-image-png"><source media="(min-width: 72rem)"><img
class="media-element file-figure"
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-01/getty-screenshot.png?itok=l6nLxz0h×tamp=1516632986"
alt="" title="" height="403" width="543"><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element">
<p>In a Getty Images database, South African hip hop
artist Dope Saint Jude is misidentified as an
“Afro-American woman” and her photo is sold as a
generic stock image. Her image was altered by the
pro-Israel “feminist” group Zioness, which erased
her tattoo of Jesus and superimposed a Star of
David on her chest.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>A South African artist is rejecting any ties to a
Zionist women’s group that is using her image in its
propaganda.</p>
<p>Dope Saint Jude, a <a
href="https://soundcloud.com/dope-saint-jude">Cape
Town hip hop artist and producer</a> confirmed that
her image had been used by Zioness in <a
href="https://www.zioness.org/posters">posters and
graphics</a> promoting the pro-Israel group’s
presence at the Women’s March in cities across the US
last weekend.</p>
<figure id="file-55926" class="media
media-element-container media-figure
media-wysiwyg-align-right file file-image
file-image-jpeg"><source media="(min-width: 72rem)"><img
class="media-element file-figure"
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-01/zioness_poster.jpg?itok=zHmP6usu×tamp=1516614180"
alt="" title="" height="369" width="289"><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element">
<p>A poster from the pro-Israel group Zioness.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>One image, in a style reminiscent of <a
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/08/entertainment/la-et-cm-shepard-fairey-20120908">Shepard
Fairey’s famous poster of Barack Obama</a>, shows
Dope Saint Jude standing with arms crossed above the
slogan “Zionists 4 Women’s Rights #TheResistance.”</p>
<p>Another includes the slogan “Zionesses stand with
women in Iran.”</p>
<p>The Zioness movement appears to be an <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Astroturfing&oldid=820636910">astroturfing</a>
effort to portray support for Israel as feminist, in
line with the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/how-israel-lobby-using-owen-jones">propaganda
strategy</a> adopted by Israel and its lobby groups
to try to co-opt progressive support.</p>
<p>In a series of tweets, Dope Saint Jude – born <a
href="http://www.okayafrica.com/dope-saint-jude-hip-hop-feminism-race-politics-cape-town-queer-culture/">Catherine
St Jude Pretorius</a> – confirmed that the image is
of her.</p>
<p>“I am in no way affiliated with the Zioness
movement,” she tweeted. “At all.”</p>
<p>“I’m just a South African girl who rides a motorbike,
makes music and has no ties to Israel or the zionest
[her spelling] movement,” she added.</p>
<p>The stylized image of Dope Saint Jude is adapted from
a <a
href="https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/photo/afro-woman-bicycle-mechanic-looking-proud-in-bike-royalty-free-image/518202994">photo
distributed by the Getty Images agency</a>
apparently as a generic stock image.</p>
<p>The Getty caption mislabels the native South African
as an “Afro-American woman” with “tattoos and
dreadlocks standing with her arms crossed and looking
proudly at the camera.”</p>
<p>The use of Dope Saint Jude’s image was brought to
wide attention by Twitter user <a
href="https://twitter.com/ML_ine">@ML_ine</a>, who
observed that “the Zioness movement took a picture of
a Black woman from Getty Images, lightened her skin
and then made her part of their logo.”</p>
<p>The Zioness version also <a
href="https://twitter.com/LeftStu/status/955344422148780032">erases</a>
a tattoo <a
href="http://pltfrm.co.za/dope-saint-jude-modern-day-joan-arc/">depicting
the Virgin Mary</a> from Dope Saint Jude’s arm and
superimposes a Star of David on her chest.</p>
<p>The use of an African woman’s image to promote Israel
is particularly crass given the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-video-israeli-racism-new-york-times-didnt-want-you-see">extreme
government-backed racism</a> against asylum-seekers
and refugees from African states who are currently
facing mass expulsion or <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/22/israel-dont-lock-asylum-seekers">jail
if they resist</a>.</p>
<p>Dope Saint Jude was <a
href="http://www.elle.co.za/elle-meets-dope-st-jude/">profiled
by <em>Elle South Africa</em></a> in 2015.</p>
<p>“Dope Saint Jude is the experience of a young brown
girl in South Africa, moving in the hip hop scene,”
the artist told the magazine. “She defines her own
femininity and imposes her own power dynamic, instead
of conforming to the idea [of] femininity that is
imposed by society.”</p>
<p>The stock image of Dope Saint Jude has been used to
market other political causes:</p>
<h2>Zionist feminist astroturf</h2>
<p>Zioness was <a
href="https://forward.com/opinion/387738/zioness-is-here-to-stay-so-get-used-to-us/">cofounded</a>
by Amanda Berman, an executive of The Lawfare Project.</p>
<p>The Lawfare Project is an Israel lobby group that
uses litigation to harass supporters of Palestinian
rights and its director <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lawfare-group-plans-massive-punishments-activists">claims</a>
that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian.”</p>
<p>Zioness is being promoted by Chloé Valdary, an <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/chloe-valdary-christian-black-rising-star-of-pro-israel-campus-activism/">African
American Christian Zionist</a> long <a
href="https://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/pro-israel-and-conservative-operatives-crush-free-speech-campus">groomed
by Israel lobby groups</a> as a spokesperson for the
anti-Palestinian cause:</p>
<p>Zioness has generated opposition to its presence in
the Women’s March held across the US this weekend a
year after the inauguration of Donald Trump.</p>
<p>“The Zioness is progressive, Zionist and proud,” the
group’s <a href="https://www.zioness.org">website
proclaims</a>. “Rooted in Jewish values, she stands
for justice and fights against all forms of
oppression.”</p>
<p>But as Palestinian American organizer Nada Elia <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2018/01/arent-nariman-tamimi/">points
out in a commentary</a> for <em>Mondoweiss</em>,
“Obviously, Zionesses do not view Israel’s 70 years of
the violation of Palestinian human rights as a form of
oppression.”</p>
<p>Elia notes that Zioness is one of a number of efforts
by pro-Israel forces to reassert their presence in
what are being claimed as progressive spaces.</p>
<p>The Palestinian American Women’s Association and
several US solidarity groups <a
href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-palestinian-protest-20180120-story.html">withdrew
their endorsement</a> from the Los Angeles Women’s
March in <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/pawasca/posts/839032499617813">protest</a>
of the organizers’ invitation to actor Scarlett
Johansson to address the rally.</p>
<p>Johansson was at the center of controversy several
years ago because of her role as spokesperson for <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sodastream">Sodastream</a>, an
Israeli company that was located in and profiting from
Israel’s military occupation and colonization of the
West Bank.</p>
<p>Amid global protests, Johansson ended her role as
humanitarian ambassador for Oxfam, after the
international development charity <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-punishing-oxfam-break-scarlett-johansson-say-aid-workers">criticized
her endorsement</a> deal with SodaStream.</p>
<p>Elia welcomes the growing resistance to this kind of
whitewashing that attempts to manufacture grassroots
feminism in support of Israel.</p>
<p>“Palestinian women and our allies have long pointed
out the erasure of our oppression from mainstream
feminist discourse,” she writes. “Hopefully 2018, and
the grassroots insistence that Palestine must be
included in intersectional struggles for justice, will
put an end to that.”</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated.</em></p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article
described Dope Saint Jude’s tattoo as being of
Jesus, however as it now notes, the artist herself
has previously described it as a tattoo of Mary.</em></p>
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