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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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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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