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Hollywood vs. Hollywood: Battle Brewing Between Stars, Studios & the Pro-Palestinian Press
Hannah Einbinder accepting her Emmy award and denouncing Israel. Photo: screenshot.
Hollywood has always been political. Or at least its stars like to think so. Forever assuring themselves they’re on the “right side of history,” they parade their A-list power behind whichever fashionable cause guarantees the loudest applause from their peers and fans.
And right now, nothing is trendier in Tinseltown than the pro-Palestinian cause — a ready-made underdog tale for those with little grasp of the facts.
So it was hardly surprising that this year’s Emmy Awards were laced with anti-Israel messaging: Spanish actor Javier Bardem pairing his tux with a keffiyeh draped like a pashmina, actress Hannah Einbinder capping her acceptance speech by shouting “Free Palestine,” and a scattering of red-hand pins – worn as a gesture of solidarity, though their wearers seemed oblivious that the symbol is a nod to the gruesome 2000 Ramallah lynching of two Israeli soldiers.
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Glitz, glamor, red carpets… and Palestine.
At last night’s @TheEmmys, some celebs couldn’t resist hijacking the spotlight with anti-Israel stunts.From Javier Bardem’s keffiyeh show to “Free Palestine” shout-outs, here’s a roundup of the worst.
pic.twitter.com/hTHXeQ7PUE
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 15, 2025
And we say: let them. Actors live in a bubble, rewarded by their circles for what they imagine are “principled” positions, blind to how these gestures look to the broader public — or to more knowledgeable colleagues within their own industry who see through the act.
A perfect example came with the petition launched by Film Workers for Palestine, signed by some 4,000 filmmakers, writers, actors, and crew members. Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman, Andrew Garfield, and others lent their names. The petition demanded a boycott of the Israeli film industry, accusing its institutions of “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid,” even citing cultural events like the Jerusalem Film Festival.
It went further still, sanctimoniously claiming that “the vast majority” of Israeli companies “have never supported the full rights of the Palestinian people” — as if this sweeping indictment were the result of some rigorous survey rather than lazy ideological sloganeering.
But just days after the letter was published, Paramount Pictures became the first major studio to break ranks. In a pointed rebuke, the studio declared:
We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace. The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world. We need more engagement and communication — not less.
This clash revealed Hollywood’s split personality: the loud posturing of celebrity activists on one side, and the quieter but firmer resistance of industry institutions on the other.
And into this divide stepped the industry’s most high-profile trade publication, read by more than 25 million people a month: The Hollywood Reporter. Not as a neutral observer, but as an amplifier of one side of the story.
First, let’s put this into context. The Hollywood Reporter’s fixation on Israel is striking for a publication ostensibly devoted to the entertainment industry. In just one week this month, it published 18 separate pieces referencing Israel and the war in Gaza — nearly three a day.
On the Emmys alone, it ran multiple articles spotlighting pro-Palestinian gestures, including two focused entirely on Javier Bardem’s keffiyeh and anti-Israel remarks.
The first carried the headline: “Javier Bardem Calls for Israel to ‘Stop this Genocide’ at 2025 Emmys.” The second dropped even the pretense of neutrality, dispensing with quotation marks altogether: “‘Monsters’ Star Javier Bardem Voices His Support to End Genocide in Gaza.”
The piece quoted Bardem’s ludicrous claims in full, including his solemn invocation of the “International Association of Genocide Scholars.” Readers were not informed that this supposedly august body requires nothing more than a $30 membership fee to cast a vote declaring Israel guilty of “genocide.”
The article then folded in the celebrity boycott letter, presenting it as a “new pledge to boycott working with Israeli film institutions and companies.” Noticeably absent? Any mention of Paramount’s unequivocal statement rejecting the boycott — released days earlier. In other words, The Hollywood Reporter chose to present a picture of unified anti-Israel solidarity in Hollywood, when in fact the industry itself was already fracturing.
This isn’t an isolated case. A wider snapshot of the outlet’s coverage shows a consistent pattern: lionizing Palestinian filmmakers while nit-picking Israeli ones. One glowing feature was headlined: “Amid the Tragedy of War, Palestinian Filmmakers Are Finding a Way to Break Through.”
By contrast, a recent review of Barry Avrich’s The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, which documents Israeli general Noam Tibon’s desperate effort to save his family from Hamas terrorists on October 7, was dismissed as offering a “tense but oversimplified snapshot.” One criticism leveled at Avrich was that he focused “too much” on October 7 so that “nobody needs to think of anything that came before or after.”
Before? What exactly does The Hollywood Reporter believe happened “before” October 7 that could possibly contextualize the butchering of Israeli families in their homes? The implication is as grotesque as it is telling.
This is the deeper problem. We could say that Hollywood’s most prominent industry voice has traded neutrality for selective outrage, but the truth is The Hollywood Reporter was never neutral. Like much of Hollywood, it has long been sympathetic to left-wing and progressive causes.
But to suggest this is simply more of the same would be a mistake. In aligning itself with the pro-Palestinian cause as framed by Hollywood’s loudest activists, The Hollywood Reporter is not being “progressive.” It is lending its voice to a movement from which its celebrity backers will eventually distance themselves — when the wind shifts, or when they realize they are alienating their employers and fans.
Publications don’t have that luxury. Unlike actors insulated by a bubble of self-congratulation, The Hollywood Reporter is still an industry institution. Its credibility is supposed to rest on professionalism, not posturing. By choosing sides, it risks a stain that will be far harder to wash off.
The actors flaunt the pins, the filmmakers sign the pledges, and The Hollywood Reporter cements the narrative — one it may find impossible to rewrite when the curtain falls.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Israel Strikes Yemen’s Sanaa After Houthi Drone Attack on Eilat
Smoke rises from the sites of Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
The Israeli military said it struck targets linked to Yemen’s Houthis in Sanaa on Thursday, a day after the internationally designated terrorist group claimed a drone attack on a hotel in Israel‘s Red Sea resort of Eilat.
The Houthi-run health ministry said two people were killed and 48 wounded in the attack, which it said hit civilian and service facilities. Civil defense teams were still working at the scene.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the Houthi general staff’s control headquarters, security and intelligence compounds, and military camps were among the targets attacked by its air force.
“We have now delivered a powerful strike on numerous terror targets of the Houthi terror organization in Sanaa“, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X.
The strikes are the latest in more than a year of attacks and counterstrikes between Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen and Israel, part of a spillover from the war in Gaza.
The strikes targeted the Dhahban power station and several residential neighborhoods, the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported.
The strikes came as a pre-recorded speech by Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi was being aired.
On Wednesday, at least 20 people were injured after a drone launched from Yemen hit a hotel in Israel‘s Red Sea resort city of Eilat, the Israeli ambulance service said.
Israel in August carried out a strike that killed the prime minister of the Houthis’ administration and several other ministers, the first such attack to kill senior officials of the Islamist group.
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The UN Is Obsolete; Israel’s Defense of Itself Just Proved It’s a Good Thing
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
For decades, the UN has been a forum for anti-Israel bias and symbolic gestures. This week’s General Assembly drama — mass recognition of a Palestinian state, lectures about ceasefires, and leaders publicly abandoning hope in the institution — only confirms that the world no longer relies on a body built for moral posturing rather than practical action.
The UN was born to prevent genocide and keep the peace. Yet this week’s General Assembly laid bare how far the institution has drifted from that founding purpose.
World leaders poured into New York to declaim, condemn, and recognize; the headlines were dominated less by meaningful enforcement than by theatrical denunciations and symbolic recognitions. Several European governments used the UN stage to formally recognize a Palestinian state — an outraged diplomatic rebuke to Israel that, while loud, offers no practical mechanism to stop terrorism against Israel or feed the starving. The actions by countries to recognize a state of “Palestine” are real and consequential as a political signal, but they are not a solution to the operational realities on the ground.
What the General Assembly specializes in is moral theater. Speeches this week ranged from calls for immediate ceasefires and humanitarian corridors, to scathing rebukes of Israel’s campaign against Hamas.
Spain’s king and many other leaders pressed for an immediate halt to the fighting; others used the platform to assert global values and moral outrage. At the same time, US President Donald Trump used his podium to excoriate the institution itself and to make clear that Washington will not allow the UN to dictate a policy that weakens the Western moral order, or Israel’s right of self-defense. The cacophony played out on live television; the result was clarity, not consensus: the UN can supply rhetoric, not remediation.
The practical consequences of the UN’s paralysis have been obvious for months. The Security Council — the only UN organ able to issue binding measures — has increasingly been reduced to spectacle, as members trade accusations and resort to vetoes. This week’s special council sessions underlined the growing isolation of the US position and the paralysis of the council. Many states demanded immediate steps to halt Israel’s operations, while Washington insisted that any meaningful move must condemn Hamas and protect the chance of a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
The UN’s failure is not merely rhetorical — it extends to the world body’s humanitarian role. We have now seen governments and publics lose confidence in the UN’s ability to prevent aid from being diverted and weaponized. The controversies over aid distribution in Gaza — including the UN Office of Project Services tracking that many aid consignments have not reached their intended destinations and US officials pointing to extremely high interception figures — have fed a crisis of credibility. Washington and Jerusalem’s response was to back new mechanisms to deliver life-saving assistance outside the UN framework; critics call these moves dangerous and partial, but they are a pragmatic response to a broken distribution system. The dispute over how much aid has been diverted, and by whom, is contested; what is not contested is the loss of public trust in the UN’s delivery capabilities.
If the UN cannot be trusted to apply its own neutrality standards, safeguard aid, or protect civilians impartially, then it ceases to be the practical instrument the world needs. This week’s events show something more uncomfortable: large parts of the international community prefer symbolic condemnation to hard enforcement. Countries can — and increasingly do — act through coalitions, bilateral arrangements, and ad-hoc institutions when lives are on the line. The rush to recognize a Palestinian state at the General Assembly is an example of symbolism substituting for the painstaking, security-first work required to disarm terrorists, free hostages, and then build lasting institutions.
For Israel, the lesson is blunt: survival cannot be outsourced to an assembly of speeches and resolutions. When Hamas masterminds mass murder and holds hundreds hostage, a world that treats that barbarism as merely another item for debate is failing the very cause the UN was created to defend. Israel has thus acted — and, in doing so, exposes the UN’s limited role. Some will call that action unilateral or ugly; others will call it the only realistic choice left in a world where the most binding international body is paralyzed by politics. Either way, this week’s General Assembly demonstrated that the UN provides a stage, not a strategy.
The UN may survive as a diplomatic forum. It can still host conferences, deliver statements, and register condemnations. But its transformation from an authority that organizes collective security into a global soapbox is now complete. If the international order is to be more than rhetoric, democratic states must stop pretending that a broken multilateral institution can substitute for decisive leadership and accountable coalitions capable of both providing aid and stopping terror. The UN’s obsolescence is no tragedy — it is an invitation for effective, moral action to migrate from podiums to policy.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
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The BBC Supports Convicted Mass Murderer to Head ‘State Of Palestine’
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Paul Adams, the BBC’s Diplomatic Correspondent, chose to mark the occasion of the UK’s recognition of the nonexistent “State of Palestine” by authoring a 2,000 word article where he portrays a convicted mass murderer to be its best candidate for president.
Here’s the problem: Adams doesn’t just misrepresent who convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti really is, but he also fails to explain why Hamas demands Barghouti’s freedom.
In “Recognising Palestinian statehood opens another question – who would lead it?” Adams writes, “[Barghouti] has always denied the charges but has been in an Israeli prison since 2002.”
Barghouti was arrested and indicted as the mastermind of the murder of a Greece-born priest named Georgios Tsibouktzakis (Father Germanos), as well as a string of other murders.
Barghouti had the opportunity to contest the charges and prove his innocence. But he refused to deny culpability and declared that the “Zionist” court had no right to prosecute him.
That makes sense, since — in Barghouti’s view — murdering Jews is the proper thing to do.
On May 20, 2004, Barghouti was convicted of the murders of Father Germanos and four other innocent people. He is serving five consecutive sentences of life imprisonment. Nowhere in his article does Adams state that Barghouti was convicted. Instead, Adams hides the truth and writes just that Barghouti was “arrested and charged.”
For many years, various journalists and others have been puffing up Barghouti, saying that he’s the only figure in the Palestinian Arab world who is popular enough to serve as head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the president of “Palestine.”
Well, if that’s true, what does that tell us about Palestinian Arab society right now, given that their most popular consensus candidate is a convicted mass murderer?
Adams writes: “Despite being a senior member of Fatah, which has long been in conflict with Hamas, [Barghouti’s] name is thought to feature prominently on the list of political prisoners Hamas wants freed in return for Israeli hostages held in Gaza. But Israel has not given any indication of a willingness to release him.”
One of the things that may be motivating Hamas to work for Barghouti as a replacement for current PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is the assumption that Western politicians believe Barghouti to be someone they will be able to collaborate with.
Another rationale for why Hamas wants Barghouti out of Israeli prison is that Hamas fully knows that if he were to become president of a future Palestinian state, he would be a Hamas supporter — and Hamas could one day reclaim power, whether with bullets or ballots.
Hamas believes, and with good reason, that its terrorists will be able to quickly wrest power from the PA’s Palestinian Security Services, or whatever successor organization takes its place, based on the fact that it was able to overpower Fatah in Gaza in 2007 and effectively eliminate it as a force there.
Hamas has only grown in its effectiveness and resourcefulness over the last 18 years, as October 7th proved.
Finally, Hamas can assume that its own goals and Barghouti’s are more closely aligned than not. Both want to see an end to the existence of an Israeli state. This basic agreement abates any differences, if they exist at all, over religion, culture, economics, and political systems.
Even if he were to oppose Hamas, Barghouti will not have the power or strength to defeat them. Hamas’ control of a large swath of land alongside Israel guarantees what Hamas has already pledged: never ending war.
Any agreements that a Barghouti government would make with Israel would be broken by Hamas when it would take power. Europe’s gamble that Barghouti can stop Hamas is a dangerous fantasy.
What would Israel look like today if it had been nine miles wide on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked?
Every map of a “two-state solution” requires an Israeli withdrawal to the nine-mile-wide borders of 1949-1967. The reason those lines are inevitable is that PA cities such as Tulkarm and Qalqilya are nine miles from the Mediterranean — and Barghouti is not going to give up those cities.
Nine-mile-wide borders mean that Israel’s strategic mid-section would be virtually indefensible. Israel’s major cities and Ben Gurion Airport would be within easy rocket range of Hamas terrorists stationed on the “Palestine” side of the border. If Israel’s soldiers chased those terrorists across the border, Israel would become the target of severe international condemnation. The United Nations would almost surely threaten sanctions, as would the European Union. And who would prevent “Palestine” from importing Iranian missiles or “volunteer” soldiers from Yemen?
The West needs to recognize this reality and accept the fact that the world has changed. A “two-state solution” as envisioned in the past, means a situation in which Israel will be threatened with an October 7 every single day. That is something no reasonable government can accept, least of all Israel.
Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, AFSI, (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.