It was a coincidence that I found myself talking to one of the leading advocates for Palestinian rights in Gaza this weekend, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.
Alkhatib is a senior fellow at the think tank The Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. and has a new book out called “Hamas and its Two Million Hostages,” which argues for ending Hamas rule in Gaza and empowering Palestinians to have agency in their own land. I was interested in learning about the book and he agreed to meet via Zoom.
But over the previous two days, a controversy had broken out over remarks made by progressive activist and actor Mark Ruffalo regarding Gaza and Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Ruffalo came under intense fire from Paramount itself — and by Sunday, four leading Jewish organizations — for tying the merger to the Ellison family and what he called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza “which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
Both Paramount and the Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, called his remarks “antisemitic.” Ruffalo shot back on social media that their criticism was “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”
I could not resist asking Alkhatib his opinion. He did not take a beat before shooting back.
“It’s mixing topics that do not need to be mixed,” he said. “It’s using the Palestinian issue as a cudgel that has little to nothing to do with a foreign policy subject. And it is meant to invoke a classic scare tactic – [that] of the omnipresent rich Jews who are in control of every aspect of society.
“It’s bullshit to say Oracle is enabling genocide,” he went on. “There’s an abundance of capabilities that the US, NATO and foreign countries, the UAE, the Saudis, the Qataris, the Turks [use] – they contract with all of them.
He went on: “I might not like the consolidation of the studios. It may be fair for some to push back on the consolidation of the media – that’s an entirely valid argument on its own. But to connect it to Gaza, and to proclaim that Larry and David Ellison are uniquely guilty of empowering Israel and enabling its activities against Palestinians and therefore this consolidation with Paramount is inherently evil – is clearly a manipulative effort by Mr. Ruffalo.”
A representative for Ruffalo did not immediately respond to request for a response to Alkhatib’s remarks.
Alkhatib is a somewhat unique figure in Palestinian policy circles because of his strident criticism of Hamas for what he believes was a disastrous decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which brought so much suffering to his people and set back hopes for an independent Palestinian state.
He was raised in Gaza and says he lost 30 family members to Israel’s war in the territory. He also says he lost hearing in his left ear due to an Israeli shell. Nonetheless, he advocates for what he calls “radical pragmatism.”
In that vein he is unsparingly critical of the pro-Palestinian progressive movement in the West which, he believes, absolves Hamas of its responsibility by focusing single-mindedly on Israel’s actions and thus undermines Palestinian agency.
He was typically unsparing of Ruffalo who he accused of grandstanding, and “a cadre within Hollywood who have promulgated the genocide narrative, without thinking critically about its implications, what it means.”
“There are those who seek to make a point and there are those who try to make a difference,” he said. “It appears that time and time again Mr. Ruffalo is someone who is making a point at the expense of making a difference for the people of Gaza.”
Ruffalo did not respond to request for a response to Alkhatib’s remarks.
The controversy began when on Friday he posted a long Instagram piece calling to stop the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, as he has done consistently. But this time he shared a video of Safra Catz, executive vice chair of Larry Ellison’s Oracle, flexing that the company’s “profoundly scary technologies” advanced the Israeli agenda against Palestinians following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks nearly three years ago.
“This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros. acquisition,” the actor wrote. “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. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
Alkhatib disagreed. “This is not about explaining the deal, but the furtherance of his already robustly radical platform and agenda. That has been about virtue signaling, not meaningfully moving the needle on this subject.”
