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Entertainment Industry Figures Continue to Face Consequences for Anti-Israel Comments as Gaza War Divides Hollywood
Melissa Barrera pictured as The Cast of Scream VI will visit the Empire State Building to promote the film’s upcoming release on March 6, 2023 in New York City. Photo: IMAGO/MediaPunch via Reuters Connect
A growing number of celebrities and other members of the Hollywood entertainment industry are being fired from jobs and talent agencies or reprimanded by their colleagues for attacking Israel as the Jewish state wages a defensive war against Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israeli communities.
Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon was dropped as a client by United Talent Agency after lambasting Israel at a recent pro-Palestinian rally in New York City, the agency confirmed on Tuesday. At the rally, Sarandon accused Israel of war crimes, encouraged others to have the “courage to speak out” in support of Palestinians, and compared Hamas’ slaughter of civilians last month — which sparked the current conflict — to the hardships the Palestinians have faced in Gaza under Hamas rule. She has also shared a number of anti-Israel posts on social media since Hamas terrorists infiltrated the Jewish state, killing over 1,200 people and seizing more than 240 hostages.
At the same time, Spyglass Media Group, which produces the Scream film franchise, dropped actress Melissa Barrera as the star of Scream VII after she uploaded a series of posts on Instagram that referred to Israel as a “colonized” land and suggested that Jews control the media. She wrote in part: “Western media only shows the [Israeli] side. Why do they do that, I will let you deduce for yourself.”
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” she separately wrote in one post on her Instagram Story. “Cornering everyone together, with no where to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
A Spyglass spokesperson said in a statement to Variety that Barrera was fired because her posts were deemed antisemitic: “Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
In October, one of Hollywood’s top agents, Maha Dakhil — whose clients included Tom Cruise, Natalie Portman, and Madonna — resigned from the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) internal board and was relieved of her duties as co-head of the motion pictures department after falsely accusing Israel of genocide. She apologized for the remarks and was reportedly allowed to remain as an agent at CAA.
Not everyone was happy with CAA’s actions. Cruise made it known to the agency that he still supported his agent, despite the incident, by meeting Dakhil at her CAA office on Nov. 15, according to reports. A group of CAA assistants even threatened to leave the agency for the way they treated Dakhil, but eventually dropped their threat, Variety reported. However, some CAA agents complained that Dakhil should have been fired.
Separately, CAA cut ties with a staffer and two clients who made anti-Israel comments on social media.
CAA also dropped Saira Rao and Regina Jackson — co-authors of the 2022 book White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better — because of their social media posts accusing Israel of genocide. Rao said she is “honored to be dropped by CAA for standing up for Palestinians.” However, a CAA spokesperson clarified that the author was not dropped for supporting Palestinians, but for social media posts that were antisemitic. Following the news, Rao tweeted: “F—k America. F—k Israel. The end.”
CAA did not stop there and additionally fired assistant Jouman (Jasmine) Barakat over her posts against Israel. Barakat called all Israelis white supremacists, labeled pro-Israel rallies as “pro-hell rallies,” and ridiculed a post from Israel’s official X/Twitter account that stated, “Even Israelis Deserve to Live” by calling it a “fascist regime,” according to screenshots of the posts circulated online.
Last month, Jewish voice actress Tara Strong was fired from her job in an independent animated series after she voiced solidarity with Israel and condemned Hamas terrorists. Meanwhile, former adult film star Mia Khalifa lost her partnership deal with Playboy magazine and an Ontario-based company called Red Light Holland in October after she referred to Hamas as “freedom fighters,” poked fun at the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, and accused Israel of being a “Zionist apartheid regime.”
La La Land producer Marc Platt reportedly texted heads of the Hollywood talent agency WME asking why Sorry to Bother You writer-director Boots Riley was still a client after the latter asked his followers on X/Twitter to boycott a screening of raw, unedited footage about the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Riley called the film “murderous propaganda” and said, “when IDF [the Israel Defense Forces] and Israeli officials are at The Hague for war crimes, massacres, and genocidal actions — you won’t want your name or image to have been anywhere near it.” Riley is still a WME client.
The post Entertainment Industry Figures Continue to Face Consequences for Anti-Israel Comments as Gaza War Divides Hollywood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police made an arrest based on a viral video of a woman praising terrorists—a few days before she was spotted at the encampment at UBC
The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) announced on Wednesday, May 1, that it had arrested a 44-year-old woman, who, during a rally on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery the previous week, praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel—and referred to several terrorist organizations as heroes. The VPD’s Major Crime Section launched an investigation […]
The post Vancouver police made an arrest based on a viral video of a woman praising terrorists—a few days before she was spotted at the encampment at UBC appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Turkey Halts Trade With Israel, Continuing Pro-Hamas Stance Since Outbreak of Gaza War
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS
Turkey has ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel as of Thursday, according to the Turkish trade ministry.
“Export and import transactions related to Israel have been stopped, covering all products,” the ministry said in a statement, citing the “humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories as the reason.
“Turkey will strictly and decisively implement these new measures until the Israeli government allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” the trade ministry added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded forcefully to Ankara, accusing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of violating agreements by blocking ports for Israeli imports and exports.
“This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter.
Katz said he directed Israel’s foreign ministry to pursue alternatives for trade with Turkey, emphasizing a focus on local production and imports from other countries.
“Israel will emerge with a strong and daring economy,” he added. “We win, and they lose.”
The two countries had a trade volume of $6.8 billion last year.
Last month, Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza following the Oct. 7 massacre.
Thursday’s announcement by Turkey was the latest step in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting Israel, with Erdogan being one of the Jewish state’s harshest critics.
Just one day earlier, Turkey announced its intention to join South Africa’s so-far-unsuccessful case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in Gaza.
That came after Erdogan in March threatened to “send [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.
Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”
Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terror group’s budget.
Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terror group.
However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 253 others as hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.
The post Turkey Halts Trade With Israel, Continuing Pro-Hamas Stance Since Outbreak of Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Widow Whose Husband Was Kidnapped, Murdered on Oct. 7 by Hamas Delivers Fourth Child
Ella Chaimi and her new baby boy. Photo: Provided
The widow of Tal Chaimi — a resident of Kibbutz Nir Yitzchak in Israel who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 — gave birth to a baby boy on Thursday at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Ella Chaimi is now the single parent of four children, including 9-year-old twins and a six-year-old. “This birth is filled with mixed emotions as I welcome into the world our child who brings with him lots of joy while also remembering Tal, who was a wonderful husband and father,” she said in a released statement. “I wish he was here with us right now.”
Idit Engel, a midwife at Beilinson Hospital, said that Chaimi and her family “have been through devastation, and I hope that this baby brings them much joy.”
“I have known Ella for many years and have cared for her during her previous pregnancies,” added Beilinson’s Women’s Hospital Prof. Arnono Weisnizer. “I know her and her family well having previously worked in the Gaza envelope, and my heart breaks for what they have gone through. Their family has been through dark times, and the birth of this baby is a light for them and for the people of Israel.”
Tal, 41, was taken as a hostage by Hamas terrorists as they attacked Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak during their assault across southern Israel on Oct. 7. A third-generation member of the kibbutz, he was part of the Nir Yitzhak rapid response team and went out during the early hours of Oct. 7 to confront terrorists invading the community. Ella hid in the safe room of the family’s house with her children while Tal and the rest of the kibbutz’s response team were out protecting the community.
Tal’s death was confirmed by authorities on Dec. 13. He was killed on Oct. 7, and his body is believed to be held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
Nir Yitzhak was one of several communities attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, during which the terrorists killed more than 1,200 people and took 253 others as hostages.
The post Israeli Widow Whose Husband Was Kidnapped, Murdered on Oct. 7 by Hamas Delivers Fourth Child first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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