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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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Palestinian Detained after West Bank Terror Ramming
Illustrative: Israeli police at the scene of a car-ramming terrorist attack near a market in Jerusalem on Monday, April 24, 2023. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters.
JNS.org – A Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a cop car in the West Bank on Saturday in what the military was investigating as a terror attack.
The incident occurred at the Eli gas station, the scene of repeated acts of terrorism against Israelis.
“A Palestinian vehicle accelerated towards a police car and collided with it, there were no casualties,” according to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Troops caught the terrorist and transferred him to security forces for further investigation,” added the statement.
On Sunday, three Israeli police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, some 7.5 miles northwest of Hebron in Judea.
They were named as Chief Inspector Arik Ben Eliyahu, 37, of Kiryat Gat, who is survived by his wife and three children; Command Sgt. Maj. Hadas Branch, 53, of Sde Moshe, who is survived by her husband, three children and granddaughter; and 1st Sgt. Roni Shakuri, 61, of Sderot, who is survived by his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
Shakuri’s other daughter, 1st Sgt. Mor Shakuri, 29, was killed on Oct. 7 while battling an attempt by Hamas terrorists to take control of the police station in Sderot, in southern Israel near the border with Gaza.
The post Palestinian Detained after West Bank Terror Ramming first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ukraine Concerned at Reports of Iranian Ballistic Missiles to Russia
A missile unveiled by Iran is launched in an unknown location in Iran in this picture received by Reuters on August 20, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Saturday it was deeply concerned by reports about a possible impending transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia.
In a statement emailed to reporters, the ministry said the deepening military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow was a threat to Ukraine, Europe and the Middle East, and called on the international community to increase pressure on Iran and Russia.
CNN and The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, citing unidentified sources.
Reuters reported in August that Russia was expecting the imminent delivery of hundreds of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles from Iran and that dozens of Russian military personnel were being trained in Iran on the satellite-guided weapons for eventual use in the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, the United States, a key ally of Ukraine, also voiced concern about the potential transfer of missiles.
“Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said on Friday that Tehran’s position on the Ukraine conflict was unchanged.
“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict – which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations – to be inhumane,” it said.
“Thus, not only does Iran abstain from engaging in such actions itself, but it also calls upon other countries to cease the supply of weapons to the sides involved in the conflict.”
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Pakistani Man Charged with Planning Terror Attack Against NY Jews on Oct. 7 or Yom Kippur
The flag of the ISIS terrorist group. Image: Reuters/Alaa Al-Marjani/File Photo.
JNS.org – A Pakistani national, whom Canadian authorities arrested on Wednesday, planned to carry out an ISIS-styled, mass shooting terror attack against Jews in New York, the U.S. Justice Department alleged on Friday.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, who also answers to Shahzeb Jadoon, “attempted to travel from Canada to New York City, where he intended to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, N.Y.,” per the complaint.
Khan allegedly distributed ISIS videos and literature and expressed support for ISIS on social media and via encrypted messages. Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is a U.S.-designated terror organization.
The defendant allegedly wrote that he wanted to target “Israeli Jewish Chabads … scattered all around,” per the 19-page complaint.
The Justice Department alleges that Khan “conveyed that he hoped to carry out this attack on or around Oct. 7, 2024—which Khan recognized as the one year anniversary of the brutal terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas, a designated foreign terror organization, which, on Oct. 7, 2023, launched a wave of violent, large-scale terrorist attacks in Israel that resulted in the deaths and hostage taking of hundreds of civilians, including American citizens.”
Khan allegedly told undercover officers that he wanted to “go for Oct. 7 or Oct 11, Yom Kippur, a major festival for the Jews,” per the complaint. “Khan emphasized that ‘Oct. 7 and Oct. 11 are the best days for targeting the Jews,’ because ‘Oct. 7 they will surely have some protests and Oct. 11 is Yom Kippur,’ and ‘they don’t have any other major festival then till next summer.’”
“In selecting New York City as his target location, Khan told the undercover law enforcement officers that ‘New York is perfect to target Jews’ because it has the ‘largest Jewish population In America,’ and, as such, ‘even if we don’t attack a event, we could rack up easily a lot of Jews,” the complaint adds.
The defendant told the undercover officers that “he intended to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible, proclaiming that ‘we are going to New York City to slaughter them,’” per the complaint, which added that Khan allegedly sent a photograph “of the specific area” where he planned to attack to the undercover officers.
Per the complaint, Khan also allegedly told the undercover officers not to wear beards, so they wouldn’t attract attention, and that “you guys will even have to attend some synagogue or Chabad sessions” to “check the insides of the buildings.” He told them it was necessary to identify emergency exits in buildings, “so we can trap them and kill them inside,” per the complaint.
“In addition, Khan also explained that they should not record their ISIS allegiance video, or ‘bayah,’ until later because it would run the risk of them being caught by law enforcement prior to the planned attack,” the complaint alleges.
One of several cities that Khan flagged had “more relaxed” gun laws, he allegedly told the undercover officers.
“What’s the point of living till you’re 70 and dying on a hospital bed when we can attain shahadah in our youths, Inshalah,” he said, per the complaint. (The complaint defines the first term as a declaration of faith and the second as God willing.)
“The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around Oct. 7 of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” stated Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general.
“Thanks to the investigative work of the FBI, and the quick action of our Canadian law enforcement partners, the defendant was taken into custody,” Garland said. “Jewish communities—like all communities in this country—should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack.”
The post Pakistani Man Charged with Planning Terror Attack Against NY Jews on Oct. 7 or Yom Kippur first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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