A Hollywood Boycott Would Silence Israel’s Anti-War Voices
(ANALYSIS) Emma Stone and Javier Bardem think that, by pledging to boycott Israel’s film industry, they’re helping Palestinians. Instead, they’re actually helping a man they likely despise: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu and his supporters have long claimed that Israel’s filmmakers, whose works tend to examine uncomfortable truths about Israeli history and contemporary life, are a fifth column that undermines the nation by making movies and TV shows that depict the harsh realities of war or — god forbid — humanize Palestinians.
“The irony of what they’re doing is that the people that they want to boycott — Israeli artists and film companies — are actually the people that are marching in the streets to affect change,” said Rick Rosen, co-founder of the WME agency. In other words: A successful boycott won’t end the war. It will just help eliminate Netanyahu’s critics from Israeli media.
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A petition circulated by a group called Film Workers for Palestine made headlines across the world last week, as Oscar-winning directors Yorgos Lanthimos and Pedro Almodover, alongside stars like Stone and Bardem, joined some 4,000 signatories in vowing “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions … that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
Bardem literally wrapped himself in the cause at Sunday night’s Emmy Awards, wearing a kaffiyeh and telling an interviewer on the red carpet that he won’t work with Israelis.
“I cannot work with someone who justifies or supports the genocide,” Bardem said.
But it makes as much sense to boycott these Israeli artists for their government’s actions, Rosen pointed out, as it would to boycott Iranian filmmakers for what their government does.
Rosen was instrumental in bringing the Emmy-winning TV series Homeland, based on an Israeli drama, to American screens, a feat he’s repeated with several other Israeli-originated shows. He represents many Israeli filmmakers, as well as Keshet, the country’s leading commercial television broadcaster.
“This is what makes no sense,” Rosen said in a phone interview about the boycott: Israeli filmmakers “are the people demanding an end to the war, and the release of the hostages.”
Netanyahu’s government has been systematically targeting Israeli filmmakers. In December 2023, Culture Minister Miki Zohar threatened to claw back public funds from directors who made documentaries about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Just last week, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi — who has been trying to withdraw financing and shut down public broadcasting in Israel for two years — said he would cut off Israel’s public broadcaster Kan’s funding over its choice to air a documentary about the 1948 war, told through Jewish and Arab voices.
The government wants to silence these artists because they are fearless, and committed to truthtelling. Now, those same voices are even more worried — because celebrities like Stone and Bardem have, by joining a movement that will only serve to silence artists opposed to Israel’s government, inadvertently give more power to Israel’s most powerful and reactionary voices.
Still, it might make sense for Hollywood artists to boycott the filmmakers in Israel who are on their side — if doing so stood a chance of actually persuading Netanyahu to end the war.
But consider that two weeks ago, Israel’s Mossad strongly opposed Netanyahu’s decision to attack Qatar — and he went ahead with it anyway. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said that invading Gaza City would endanger the hostages, but Netanyahu went ahead and ordered a new operation.
In late August, 500,000 Israelis took the streets of Tel Aviv to demand an end to the war. Proportionally, that’s the equivalent of 17 million Americans — and Netanyahu didn’t budge.
If none of these efforts to dissuade him from his course could stop him, celebrity signatures won’t either.
Instead of boycotting Israel’s anti-Netanyahu voices, the celebrities who signed onto this boycott should amplify them. They could use their genuine concern, and their talents, to support the courageous groups in Israel working toward a just society for Arabs and Jews.
Or they could consider directing their powers of persuasion at the only person in the world whom experts say has the real leverage to change Netanyahu’s behavior: President Donald Trump.
“Trump has unique influence with the prime minister and scarcely any of the political constraints that have affected his predecessors in dealing with Israel,” wrote Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, in a recent essay.
If the American president represents the best hope for bringing an end to the Gaza conflict, does that mean we should boycott the U.S. film industry to pressure Trump? If that sounds crazy and self-defeating, imagine how this new boycott strikes the Israeli artists it targets.
I’m not joining the chorus of pro-Israel activists calling the petition’s signatories hypocrites and antisemites. Bardem, for one, is simply continuing his longstanding practice of speaking out against atrocities around the world.
In 2016 he made a movie about the slaughter in South Sudan. The Last Face was distributed by Saban Films, founded and run by the Israeli-American Haim Saban — further evidence that filmmakers can accomplish a lot more when they join forces rather than build walls.
That helps explain why Rosen, who sits on the board of directors of the Israel Policy Forum, a centrist think tank, didn’t hesitate when I asked him if he would still work on a project that involved Stone.
“Absolutely, yes,” he said. “She’s an excellent actress. I’d like to foster dialogue with these people, not division.”
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
Rob Eshman is a senior columnist for the Forward. For his food writing and recipes subscribe to his Foodaism newsletter.