With a star-studded cast that includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Eddie Murphy, Netflix’s You People has a conventional plot: a Jewish man and a black woman plan to marry, their respective families meet, cultural differences and mutual prejudices come to the fore, and comedy ensues. But, writes Allison Josephs, the film fails to be funny, trivializes the Holocaust, and lets the notion that Jews grew rich from the slave trade go unquestioned. Worse still, in Joseph’s view, is that every character “loves Black culture and no one in the film loves Jewish culture. In fact, they hate it.” She adds:

[I]n You People, Jews are not considered a marginalized group. Instead, they are white, rich, privileged, and responsible for the suffering of marginalized people in the world.

Through several examples, we see that Ezra, [the Jewish suitor], is a pathological liar. He pretends to know neighborhoods and songs he doesn’t know; he claims that he doesn’t do cocaine, but then we meet his cocaine dealer (who notes that he’s a “mensch”—is the dealer Jewish too?). . . . We also know that Ezra has . . . hired prostitutes. Ezra is a lying, degenerate, drug-doing Jew.

In this movie, only Black people and never Jewish people face [discrimination and bigotry]. What do Jews face instead? Connections. Jewish connections. Ezra has a family friend: Rick Greenwald. Rick is a Jew who is connected. He gets other Jews jobs and now he can get one for Amira, [Ezra’s beloved]. But she has too much pride. Unlike the Jews, who have always been privileged, Amira had to work for everything she has!

On March 5, Riyadh appointed Salman al-Dosari—a prominent journalist and vocal supporter of the Abraham Accords—as its new minister of information. Hussain Abdul-Hussain takes this choice as one of several signals that Saudi Arabia is inching closer to normalization with Israel:

Saudi Arabia has been the biggest supporter of Palestinians since before the establishment of Israel in 1948. When the kingdom’s founder Abdulaziz Ibn Saud met with the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in the Red Sea in 1945, the Saudi king demanded that Jews in Palestine be settled elsewhere. But unlimited Saudi support has only bought Palestinian ungratefulness and at times, downright hate. After the Abraham Accords were announced in August 2020, Palestinians in Gaza and Ramallah burned pictures not only of the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain but also of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).

Since then, many Palestinian pundits and activists have been accusing Saudi Arabia of betraying the cause, even though the Saudis have said repeatedly, and as late as January, that their peace with Israel is incumbent on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While the Saudi Arabian government has practiced self-restraint by not reciprocating Palestinian hate, Saudi Arabian columnists, cartoonists, and social-media activists have been punching back. After the burning of the pictures of Saudi Arabian leaders, al-Dosari wrote that with their aggression against Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians “have liberated the kingdom from any ethical or political commitment to these parties in the future.”