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Hollywood honors a terror supporter—again

Ms. Owda was a featured speaker at a rally celebrating the PFLP’s 48th anniversary, and in her remarks called for the destruction of Israel.

By Rafael Medoff

The nomination of an antisemitic terrorism supporter for an Emmy award is provoking anguish and outrage. It should also stir a sense of déjà vu—because Hollywood has done this kind of thing before.

The latest object of Tinsel Town’s misplaced adoration is Bisan Atef Owda, a filmmaker who has circulated antisemitic tweets and has publicly embraced the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The PFLP has boasted about its participation in the October 7 pogrom.

It also pioneered airplane hijackings in the 1970s, and has carried out numerous massacres of Americans and Israelis over the years, including the slaughter of five rabbis—four of them Americans—and an Israeli policeman in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014.

Ms. Owda was a featured speaker at a rally celebrating the PFLP’s 48th anniversary, and in her remarks called for the destruction of Israel.

She even wore a PFLP uniform for the occasion. She was involved in additional PFLP activities as recently as 2018.

Nevertheless, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has nominated Owda’s recent documentary about Gaza for an Emmy, along with the film’s publisher, AJ+, which is a division of the antisemitic media network Al Jazeera.

The fact that October 7, in which the PFLP participated, was the worst single massacre of Jews since the Holocaust adds irony to the fact that Hollywood previously honored a filmmaker who assisted those who perpetrated the Holocaust itself.

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In 2004, the organizers of the Academy Awards included Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in their memorial tribute to recently-deceased movie industry figures.

Riefenstahl was personally chosen by Adolf Hitler to direct films glorifying the Nazis, such as Triumph of the Will (1934), which Who’s Who in Nazi Germany characterizes as “perhaps the most effective visual propaganda for Nazism ever made.”

The Oscar-winning British filmmaker Arnold Schwartzman has written: “Riefenstahl was probably the best propaganda tool that Hitler had and a lot of the terrible things that happened were as a consequence of what she did. There is no doubt she was a brilliant woman and a great documentarian, but she used her skills to rouse the German people into going along with Hitler.”

Riefenstahl even used Roma (Gypsy) prisoners from Nazi concentration camps as extras in one of her films.

Although Riefenstahl later claimed she did not support the Nazis, the fact is that when Hitler conquered Paris in 1940, she sent him a telegram declaring:

“Your deeds exceed the power of human imagination. They are without equal in the history of mankind. How can we [the German people] ever thank you?”

Nonetheless, some prominent Hollywood figures defended her. The actress Jodie Foster, for example, announced in 2005 that she intended to direct and star in a biopic about the Nazi film propagandist.

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Foster said in an interview that Riefenstahl was “libeled so many times” by people accusing her of membership in the Nazi Party or of having a romantic relationship with Hitler.

In the end, however, Foster’s film wasn’t made—not because Foster had a change of heart, but because Riefenstahl wanted Sharon Stone, not Foster, to play her. Ouch!

Fortunately, some actors are responding differently this time around. More than 100 actors and entertainment industry figures have signed a letter calling for the withdrawal of the Emmy nomination for Bisan Atef Owda.

The letter said it is “inexcusable” for the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to “glorify someone who is a member of an organization that has carried [out] numerous aircraft hijackings, participated in the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, carried out waves of bombings on markets and restaurants and murdered innocent women and children…Honoring someone linked to an organization that has caused so much pain and suffering is not just irresponsible; it is a direct affront to the values we hold dear in the entertainment industry.”

The president of the National Academy, Adam Sharp, responded that he has been “unable to corroborate these reports” about Owda’s involvement with the PFLP.

Sounds like he hasn’t been looking too hard; there are photos and videos of her, in full PFLP attire, all over the internet.

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And before Sharp and his colleagues try to dismiss Owda’s extremism as something from “years ago,” they might want to check out some of her recent social media rantings.

Just last month, for example, she wrote that Israel “occupies every corner of the world,” regurgitating the classic antisemitic stereotype about international Jewish control.

It’s too late for Hollywood to reverse its deplorable celebration of Leni Riefenstahl.

But there’s still time before the September 15 Emmys for the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to rescind the Owda nomination and thereby avoid once again honoring someone who assisted mass murderers of Jews.

(Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest is Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry, coauthored with Craig Yoe.)