‘Free Palestine’ – Actors use Emmys as platform for anti-Israel diatribes

Best Supporting actress winner Hannah Einbinder ended her speech with “Free Palestine.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Two actors used the Emmys award show on Sunday to speak out against Israel, with Best Supporting Actress winner Hannah Einbinder ending her acceptance speech by saying, “Free Palestine.”

Einbinder, who is Jewish, told reporters after her win for “Hacks” that she does not conflate Jews with Israel.

“I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel because our religion and our culture is such an important and longstanding … institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state,” she said.

“Palestine,” she said, was an “issue that’s very dear to my heart,” noting she has friends in Gaza “working as frontline workers” trying to help its northern residents.

The actress has spoken out against Israel several times during the war. In March, at a Human Rights Campaign event, she said she was “horrified by the Israeli government’s massacre of well over 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza.”

That statistic comes from Hamas, a party to the conflict, and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants or even those who die of natural causes.

Israel has said that even if the overall number is correct, about 25,000 of those killed were terrorists.

This ratio — fewer than two civilians for each fighter — is almost unheard of in combat. Military experts note that Western armies often cause far higher civilian death rates and consider it acceptable.

Einbinder also signed a pledge last week, along with about 2,000 others in Hollywood, to boycott Israeli film festivals, theaters, broadcasters and productions.

At the Emmys, she said targeting arts institutions was appropriate because it “only boycotts institutions that are directly complicit in the genocide” but not individuals.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem, nominated for best supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie, also used his red carpet interview to denounce Israel and support the boycott.

Wearing a keffiyeh around his neck as a sign of support for the Palestinians, Bardem repeated the charge of genocide by citing the recent conclusion of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, although critics note that membership only requires filling out a short form and paying a small fee.

He called for a “commercial and diplomatic blockade and the sanctions on Israel” and said the pledge he had signed targets “complicit film companies and institutions that are involved in whitewashing or justifying the genocide of Israel in Gaza and its apartheid regime.”

Palestinians have long labeled Israel as an “apartheid regime,” though Arabs attend the same universities, hospitals and entertainment venues as Jews, serve in Israel’s parliament, and work in all professional fields.

Emmysgenocide accusationsIsrael-Hamas warJewish ActorPro-Palestinian activists