{"id":16408,"date":"2026-08-28T15:56:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=16408"},"modified":"2026-08-28T15:56:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:56:34","slug":"hollywoods-anti-israel-obsession-exposed-in-every-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/hollywoods-anti-israel-obsession-exposed-in-every-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood&#8217;s Anti-Israel Obsession Exposed in Every Cause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to <strong>Yuval David<\/strong> writing in <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>, the pattern involves celebrities invoking Israel as a villain in contexts where the country has little or no relevance, while simultaneously remaining silent on far graver human rights abuses elsewhere in the region. Free speech protects the right to protest and criticize, David argues, but it does not exempt celebrity activism from scrutiny or shield false claims from being challenged.<\/p>\n<p>Two cases currently unfolding illustrate the problem: actor <strong>Mark Ruffalo&#8217;s<\/strong> inflammatory attack on a corporate merger deal, and a celebrity-backed campaign to free a convicted terrorist leader.<\/p>\n<h2>Corporate Merger Turned Into Anti-Israel Campaign<\/h2>\n<p>The proposed Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has drawn opposition from entertainment industry professionals concerned about market concentration and job losses. More than 1,000 workers signed a letter opposing the deal, the Writers Guild has taken a stand against it, and attorneys general from 12 states are suing in federal court to block the merger, with trial scheduled for March 2027.<\/p>\n<p>The business dispute had nothing to do with Israel until Ruffalo injected the issue. In an Instagram post, the actor targeted Paramount CEO <strong>David Ellison<\/strong> and his father, Oracle co-founder <strong>Larry Ellison<\/strong>, by resurfacing a 2024 video clip of Oracle executive <strong>Safra Catz<\/strong> discussing the company&#8217;s technology support for Israel following the October 7 attacks.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-16408 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-medium'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26222685418477-2-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-16404\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26222685418477-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26222685418477-2-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26222685418477-2.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-16404'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: washingtonexaminer.com\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-approval-new-low-4-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-16405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-approval-new-low-4-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-approval-new-low-4-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-approval-new-low-4.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-16405'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: washingtonexaminer.com\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26200714557537-2-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-16406\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26200714557537-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26200714557537-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26200714557537-2.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-16406'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: washingtonexaminer.com\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Ruffalo labeled Larry Ellison a <em>classic oligarch<\/em>, accused the Ellisons of powering what he called genocidal and apartheid systems, and urged followers to watch Catz describe what he characterized as genocide. Paramount swiftly condemned the remarks as antisemitic, stating that terms like genocide and apartheid, when applied to a corporate transaction, diminish the suffering those words are meant to describe.<\/p>\n<p>Four major Jewish and pro-Israel organizations reached the same conclusion. The Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Creative Community for Peace all condemned the actor&#8217;s statements within 48 hours. <strong>Rabbi Noah Farkas<\/strong>, CEO of Jewish Federation Los Angeles, called it an <em>unhinged rant<\/em> fusing Jewish wealth, media control, and sinister global power conspiracies. ADL CEO <strong>Jonathan Greenblatt<\/strong> advised Ruffalo to oppose the merger on its actual economic merits rather than dragging the Jewish state into an entirely unrelated matter.<\/p>\n<p>This is not Ruffalo&#8217;s first controversy involving Israel. He apologized in 2021 for previously calling Israel&#8217;s actions genocide, admitting the term was inaccurate and inflammatory. He later promoted an AI-generated image during the viral &#8220;All Eyes on Rafah&#8221; social media campaign. As recently as September 2025, he called for boycott, divestment, sanctions, and prosecution of Israel. Media reports indicate he has privately told associates he ended friendships with Jewish actors who continued supporting Israel, saying he could no longer relate to them.<\/p>\n<h2>Campaign to Free Convicted Terrorist<\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile, more than 200 cultural figures including <strong>Benedict Cumberbatch<\/strong>, <strong>Cate Blanchett<\/strong>, <strong>Tilda Swinton<\/strong>, <strong>Ian McKellen<\/strong>, <strong>Sting<\/strong>, <strong>Paul Simon<\/strong>, and Ruffalo again have signed onto an international campaign demanding the release of <strong>Marwan Barghouti<\/strong>. The campaign portrays Barghouti as a political prisoner comparable to Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n<p>Barghouti was convicted in Israeli court for his role in terrorist murders. The celebrity-led effort to recast him as a freedom fighter represents what critics describe as a willful disregard for the victims of terrorism and a troubling pattern of excusing violence when directed at Israelis.<\/p>\n<p>The common thread in both cases, according to the analysis, is that Israel serves as a fixed villain regardless of context or facts. Whether the subject is a corporate merger or a convicted participant in terrorist attacks, the same progressive Hollywood voices find ways to target the Jewish state while remaining conspicuously silent on authoritarian regimes, theocratic dictatorships, and far worse human rights records throughout the Middle East and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Ruffalo has rejected accusations of antisemitism, arguing that criticizing an Israeli military contract is not the same as attacking Jewish people. Critics respond that this defense misses the actual question: why does a Hollywood merger require Israel as its villain in the first place, and why does a convicted terrorist become a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre when the crimes were committed against Israelis?<\/p>\n<p>The pattern, critics contend, runs almost exclusively through Hollywood&#8217;s limousine-liberal activist class, which treats Israel as the one government on Earth whose very legitimacy remains perpetually in question. The exercise of free speech, they argue, increasingly comes without the homework it should require: without factual depth, without verification, and without apparent interest in whether the underlying claims hold up to scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Washington Examiner<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hollywood celebrities like Mark Ruffalo are accused of selective outrage for injecting anti-Israel rhetoric into unrelated controversies while ignoring worse human rights abuses elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":16407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[12487,6910,650,279,4375,209],"nfg_topic":[137],"class_list":["post-16408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-anti-israel-bias","tag-celebrity-activism","tag-hollywood","tag-israel","tag-mark-ruffalo","tag-united-states","nfg_topic-culture-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16409,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16408\/revisions\/16409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16408"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=16408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}