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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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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
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