Antonella Roccuzzo, model and influencer, promotes Zionist literary sagas, funneling cultural capital to authors who endorse Israel's settler-colonial project amid the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians — all whilst staying silent on the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians
Antonella Roccuzzo, a Rosario-born model, amplifies Zionist fantasy authors via Instagram book hauls and normalizes the output which sustains consent for the apartheid and erasure of Palestinians.
SOCIAL MEDIA/INFLUENCER
Antonella Roccuzzo, a Rosario-born model, entrepreneur, and Instagram influencer with over 40 million followers, wields significant cultural influence as the wife of Lionel Messi, the Argentine footballer who has maintained silence on Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza and the West Bank.
Between 2023 and 2025, Roccuzzo actively promoted the fantasy sagas of two authors widely identified as Zionists — Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros — through vacation reading posts and stories, directing her audience toward works that, in the context of their creators' stances, contribute to the normalization of Israel's settler-colonial violence against Palestinians.
In July 2025, Roccuzzo shared Instagram stories from her family vacation showcasing Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series, specifically A Court of Frost and Starlight, A Court of Mist and Fury, and A Court of Wings and Ruin. She captioned the display of these tomes as her "new fascination with fantasy literature," positioning them as escapist companions amid leisure, without acknowledging Maas's Zionist affiliations.
Maas, a Jewish-American author, has faced boycott calls for her 2018 visit to Israel — where she described the state as a "wonderful, magical place" without critiquing its occupation — and for leveraging her heritage to evade accountability, as her silence on Palestinian suffering equates to complicity in the cultural whitewashing of apartheid.
Similarly, in February 2025, Roccuzzo posted about immersing herself in Yarros's Empyrean series, highlighting Onyx Storm (the latest installment, published that month) as a "must-read." This promotion came shortly after Yarros's October 2023 Instagram statement condemning "the despicable attack on Israel," expressing horror at the assault while voicing "terror" for "Palestinian innocents."
This is a Zionist-serving framing that centers Israeli victimhood and has been decried as performative equivocation that obscures Israel's 57-year blockade and bombardment. Yarros's husband, Jesse Goodman, even has publicly supported Israel's actions, further entangling her work in Zionist apologetics.
By endorsing these series to her vast, global following — predominantly young women invested in "romantasy" — Roccuzzo funnels economic and cultural support to creators whose platforms indirectly sustain propaganda that dehumanizes Palestinians as mere footnotes in Israel's "defensive" narrative.
Roccuzzo's actions occur against a backdrop of deliberate silence from the Messi household on Palestine's plight, including the conservative tallies of over 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza alone (frozen due to Israel's obstruction of data, slaughter of over 150 journalists, and destruction of healthcare infrastructure, with true figures likely exceeding hundreds of thousands).
This muteness, paired with promotional zeal for Zionist-adjacent content, exemplifies how elite influencers perpetuate erasure by flooding feeds with apolitical escapism during active genocide.
Compounding this, in December 2022 — post-Argentina's World Cup victory — Roccuzzo reposted a Hebrew-language message from Israeli model Coral Simanovich, a friend and fellow influencer, congratulating the Messis: "You deserve everything good that happens to you." Shared without translation or context, this gesture fosters affinity with Israeli cultural figures while ignoring the settler-colonial foundations of the state Simanovich represents.
Through these choices, Roccuzzo normalizes Zionist cultural hegemony, diverting attention from Gaza's siege — where over 2 million endure collective punishment — and the broader subjugation of Palestinians under apartheid. Her influence, unmoored from decolonial accountability, aids in sustaining global consent for occupation by framing Zionist outputs as innocuous entertainment.
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🔒Silence = Complicity:
For those who have passionately spoken out against other instances of genocide and massacres, yet fall silent when it comes to the suffering endured by Palestinians, their silence becomes a glaring indictment of the value placed on Palestinian lives and perpetuates a dangerous narrative that suggests Palestinian suffering is somehow less worthy of outrage, less deserving of empathy and less human than that of others.
By choosing silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, those with influential platforms inadvertently contribute to the erasure of Palestinian voices and experiences. They perpetuate a narrative of invisibility that allows the injustices inflicted upon Palestinians to continue unabated, shielded from the spotlight of global scrutiny.
Their silence sends a chilling message of complicity to the world – one that suggests Palestinian lives are expendable, their struggles inconsequential and their humanity negotiable. It emboldens perpetrators of violence and oppression, granting them impunity under the guise of indifference.
To remain silent in the face of Palestinian suffering is to betray the very essence of activism – the relentless pursuit of justice for all, without exception or equivocation. It’s a betrayal not only of the Palestinian people but of the universal principles of human dignity and equality and instead is a tacit endorsement of the dehumanization and marginalization of an entire population.
True activism demands consistency and integrity, an unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power and standing in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, regardless of geography or politics.
BDS Boycott:
The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement is a global campaign which follows the worldwide boycott movement that led to the successful dismantling of apartheid in South Africa and therefore advocates for various sustained forms of boycott against Israel until it complies with international law.
Founded as a response to the rampant, ongoing and systemic dispossession, displacement, and disenfranchisement endured by generations of Palestinians, the BDS movement is in direct response to the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements, the imposition of discriminatory laws and the denial of basic rights to millions living under occupation, apartheid or in exile with no right of return.
Central to the ethos of BDS is the belief that every purchase and action carries a weighty moral responsibility. To buy goods from or actively support companies or organizations on the BDS list is to cast a vote in favor of perpetuating injustice, a tacit endorsement of the status quo of occupation and discrimination. It’s a direct violation of the collective conscience, a betrayal of the fundamental principles of human rights and dignity.
By pressuring Israel and its supporters by withdrawing support and capital, humanity aims to bring awareness to — and ultimately — end the occupation of Palestine, grant equal rights to all Palestinians and recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. This pressure also extends to any individuals and entities found to be complicit in the normalization, funding or support of Israel’s brutal occupation and 75+ years of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
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