More than 170 Jewish figures from the entertainment industry and beyond have signed a letter in support of Mark Ruffalo over what it asserts is a “smear campaign” against the actor. Among those supporting the letter — which claims that Ruffalo has been the subject of “spurious charges of antisemitism” — are Joel Coen, Todd Hayes, Ilana Glazer, Hannah Einbinder, James Schamus, Emma Seligman, Tony Kushner, Jane Schoenbrun and Wallace Shawn. The letter comes following a heated week in which Ruffalo has been at the center of a growing confrontation regarding the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.
In a social media post on Aug. 21, the Marvel star attacked the deal over its potential consequences for Hollywood, but also accused the Ellison family of being complicit in the “genocide” against Palestinians, which he said “was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.” In the post, he highlighted Oracle’s ties to the Israeli military. In response, a Paramount spokesperson accused Ruffalo of invoking “antisemitic tropes” in “purported service of a business dispute.” Others also joined the debate, with both The Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Creative Community for Peace condemning Ruffalo’s comments, while an industry group including Haim Saban, Teddy Schwarzman and Lawrence Bender wrote that it was “unacceptable to introduce Jews, antizionism, or antisemitism into conversations about business transactions, simply because those involved are Jewish.” Ruffalo hit back, claiming that Paramount’s accusation that he was antisemitic was “appalling and fundamentally dishonest” adding: “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people.” Others came to his defense too, with Einbinder — who is Jewish and has been outspoken in her support for Palestinian rights — thanking Ruffalo for drawing a “connection between the Ellisons providing military technology to Israel during a genocide and their unprecedented media takeover.” On Tuesday, Oscar-winning filmmaker and playwright Kenneth Lonergan shared a letter in support of Ruffalo in which he said the “notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie.” The new letter signed by Jewish figures and published on Tuesday echoes the defense of Ruffalo, arguing against what it says are “false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism.” But it also highlights the same links made by Ruffalo about the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger and the Ellison family’s connections with Israel. It’s an American’s right to debate media consolidation and the dangers of monopolized corporate power without weaponizing antisemitism to bully people into silence.” See the full letter (also posted online here with notes) and list of signatories below.
We are Jewish artists, writers, creative professionals, faith leaders and thinkers who have, in response to the outrageous smear campaign against our respected colleague Mark Ruffalo, a simple message to share with the world: Enough! Enough with the false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism against those who are brave enough to point out the obvious: that the assault on the Palestinian people and the assault on our liberties at home are deeply interconnected, and there is nothing antisemitic about recognizing that fact. The proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery is no mere combination of two huge multinational companies.
Yes, it will destroy thousands upon thousands of livelihoods. Yes, it will further consolidate the oligarchic control of our media (witness the gutting of CBS News). Yes, it will strangle competition and creativity in film and television production and distribution.
But it will do all this and more as part of a larger project of tech-driven domination, a project Larry Ellison and his partners have never been shy about trumpeting — and one they themselves have explicitly linked to their support for the ongoing depredations being visited on the people of Palestine and their silencing of critics of those horrors. We all saw this after their Trump-brokered takeover of TikTok — a takeover they openly proclaimed was in large part motivated by their desire to boost pro-Israel propaganda. Larry Ellison personally, with his astonishing purported $350 million in funding and pledges to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, has been Blair’s major backer as Blair assumes an influential role in the Trump-concocted “Board of Peace” takeover of Gaza, a territory which has become an open-air laboratory for AI-driven killing and control technologies like the ones celebrated by former Oracle CEO (and current Oracle and Paramount board member) Safra Catz.
The AI road to WarnerMount runs through Gaza, and Ellison has often let us know the Orwellian world he has in store for us as he consolidates control over what we watch and how we watch it, knowing that as we watch he and his corrupt cohort will always be watching us: “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and reporting.” Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism. It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
