RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Mark Ruffalo is pushing back against Paramount Skydance after the media giant characterized his anti-merger comments as antisemitic. Ruffalo called the accusation “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.” “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people,” Ruffalo wrote in an X post Saturday. “This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.” The dispute traces back to a social media post from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — a Palestinian-led campaign opposing Israel’s occupation, which began in 1967 — that Ruffalo had boosted. The post featured comments from Oracle executive vice chair Safra Catz describing the company’s assistance to Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Catz said Oracle undertook efforts it couldn’t fully discuss to support the Israeli military, alluding to advanced technology the company made available for that purpose. BDS captioned the clip by accusing Oracle of being “complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity — including apartheid and genocide against Palestinians.” Ruffalo reshared the post to his Instagram story Friday, taking aim at Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison — who backed his son David Ellison’s acquisition of Paramount Global through Skydance Media. Ruffalo argued that Larry Ellison is “using [Oracle] to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition.” “These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you,” Ruffalo wrote. “Look how [Catz] revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.” Ruffalo urged his followers to push back against the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, arguing it would be “catastrophic for our film industry” through job losses, higher cable costs, and reduced competition. The merger remains on hold, possibly until next June, while a federal judge considers a lawsuit from a coalition of state attorneys general challenging the deal over antitrust grounds. Paramount responded over the weekend, saying it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute.” “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe,” Paramount said in a statement to multiple news outlets. “This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.” NBC News did not receive the statement from Paramount. In his Saturday response on X, Ruffalo reiterated that his criticism was not directed at Jewish people. He said the merger “has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country.” “Scrutinizing the Ellisons, including Oracle’s business built on data, surveillance technology and government contracts, and the serious threat to editorial freedom and the loss of a livelihood for thousands of families, is fair and necessary,” the actor wrote. “The $111 billion deal would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public.” A Paramount spokesperson said the company has no further comment. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a pro-Israel human rights organization, took to social media Saturday to “commend Paramount for speaking clearly and refusing to allow prejudice to masquerade as political or corporate criticism.” Jack Simony, president and director general of the nonprofit Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, issued a similar statement via email. “Paramount deserves recognition for confronting antisemitic tropes directly and unequivocally,” Simony wrote. “From the earliest days of Hollywood, Jews working in media have seen their participation recast as control and their success as conspiracy.” Ruffalo’s comments also drew criticism from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent pro-Israel advocacy group. The actor has long been a critic of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, frequently using his social media platforms and public appearances to draw attention to civilian suffering there. In 2021, he apologized for social media posts suggesting Israel was committing genocide, calling the characterization inaccurate, inflammatory, and disrespectful, and warning that it risked fueling antisemitism. Since then, however, his criticism of Israel has grown more pointed. Last September, a United Nations commission concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Public opinion in the U.S. has also shifted: a February Gallup poll found that , for the first time, more Americans said they sympathized with Palestinians (41%) than with Israelis (36%). Ruffalo was among thousands of film industry workers who pledged last year not to work with Israeli film institutions they say are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” In a September interview with Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, he described Israel’s actions in Gaza in blunt terms, calling them a famine, a genocide, and ethnic cleansing.
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