Continuing her streak as one of the most outspoken Hollywood voices against Israel’s multi-front military actions in the Middle East, “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder said “it pisses me off” that more of her industry peers don’t follow her lead.
The Emmy winner said at an April 16 live taping of Zeteo’s “Beyond Israelism” podcast in New York City — which premiered in full online Monday — that “the bar is low” to become a prominent pro-Palestinian voice in Hollywood, but her peers would just have to use their eyes to see the injustices and “genocide” in Gaza.
“It pisses me off. Because I’m sitting here with [Algerian-Palestinian activist] Mahmoud [Khalil], who has so much to risk and who has risked so much who has sacrificed so much and we are all familiar with the details of that,” she said. “And I look at these people who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind and they cannot utter a single word and it just, I guess it makes me naive, but I cannot understand it. I really can’t understand it. And I hear people say that they don’t know enough and I — I don’t, it’s like, OK, so what do you do all day? Are you just literally walking around like this?”
The actress proceeded to stand up on the Riverside Church stage and stumble around while covering her eyes.
"I look at these [Hollywood celebrities] who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind, and they cannot utter a single word.’
— Zeteo (@zeteo_news) May 11, 2026
Hannah Einbinder speaks about the cowardice of Hollywood on the Gaza genocide contrasted with Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s bravery. pic.twitter.com/JfdksOmOE1
“I always resist the idea that what I am doing is in any way brave because I don’t want cowardice to be a metric by which I judge bravery,” Einbinder continued. “What I am doing is having eyes and seeing reality and saying what I am seeing. And I think that so many people risk so much more in a tangible sense.”
The actress was joined onstage for the “Beyond Israelism” event by activist Khalil, British-Palestinian author Isabella Hammad and podcast host Simone Zimmerman.
Asked about an apparent rise in recent years of red carpet pins signifying certain causes or other celebrities being more willing than before to speak out on political matters, Einbinder explained, “Well, I think as Israel ramps up its genocide, the reality is harder and harder to ignore for a lot of people.”
She added that issues of free speech under the Trump administration, for instance, are more palatable because they are issues that impact Hollywood’s own.
“I think also people in Hollywood unfortunately need these issues to affect a white person for them to see it as relating to them,” she said. “Like, they see Jimmy Kimmel getting taken off the air suddenly, they see Stephen Colbert’s show being canceled by CBS, which is owned by the Ellisons, and they go, ‘How could this possibly happen?’ And it’s like, we know how because we saw students and professors and journalists and authors and Palestinian folks be silenced and fired and expelled and imprisoned. So we tried to say, ‘This is going to set the precedent for this whole thing to explode,’ and it took it happening to these white men for people to be like, ‘Oh my god.’
“And then of course, everything that was happening with these huge ICE presences, I think that also scared people,” she continued. “And again, after the murder of Keith Porter and Renee Good, I would say that those were moments, too, where people started to wake up.”
Listen to the full “Beyond Israelism” live taping episode via Zeteo here, and watch a clip for Einbinder’s comments during the 75-minute event in the video above.
