Actors and filmmakers who have spoken out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and in solidarity with Palestinians against oppression and occupation are being blacklisted by media giant Paramount since its takeover by Zionist billionaire David Ellison, according to reports in Israeli media.
The McCarthyite move signals what is likely to become a systematic campaign to suppress pro-Palestine voices in the industry under the guise of combating supposed ‘antisemitism’, which the Israel lobby assiduously — and antisemitically — conflates with opposition to Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid.
Of Paramount importance
The $7.7 billion merger with Ellison’s Skydance Media – he is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, one of the biggest donors to Israeli occupation forces and pro-Israel causes – has also seen the appointment of “notorious racist” and “genocide denier” Bari Weiss, a vocal defender of Israel’s ‘war’ (that is, slaughter of Palestinians) in Gaza, as editor-in-chief of Paramount-owned CBS News.
Weiss, who has said she is “happy to be called a Zionist fanatic,” is known for her anti-diversity views. Add to this attacks on the campus anti-genocide protest movement.
“If I get killed by Israeli bombs or my family is harmed, I blame Bari Weiss and her likes” — Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer after Weiss claimed he had joked about dead Israeli babies; Alareer was murdered, along with family members, by Israeli forces in a targeted bombing during the genocide.
Weiss was called out this week by a Code Pink anti-genocide protester as she addressed a right-wing gathering:
Weiss’s far-right politics and lack of experience or qualification have been highlighted even by milquetoast UK ‘mainstream’ media. In a video take-down on his show last month, US-based UK commentator John Oliver said of Weiss that:
she’s never run a TV network, has no experience directing television coverage, and as one 60 Minutes producer pointed out, is not even a reporter. That is true. She didn’t come up through the news side of a newspaper, but through the opinion pages, which are a very different thing.
But she’s ‘fanatically’ pro-Israel and that’s apparently all that matters.
Paramount’s decision to blacklist actors who stand against mass murder and to side with genocide shouldn’t be taken lightly. It should be treated like any organisation that supports the genocide or blacklists people for doing the right thing.
If you have a Paramount subscription, cancel it — and if you see a film produced by it, stay away. Meet blacklist with boycott and give Paramount the Starbucks and McDonald’s treatment.
Featured image via the Canary
