Over 5,000 voices in Hollywood signed an open letter released Thursday rejecting the use of the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza. Among the signatories are former Paramount execs Shari Redstone and Sherry Lansing, as well as actors Debra Messing, Mayim Bialik, and Jerry O’Connell.
The letter was posted by the Creative Community for Peace, while the text itself is authored by Yossi Klein Halevi, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, and Professor Jonathan Karp.
“We the undersigned are outraged and sickened by the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people: the lie that Israel committed ‘genocide’ in Gaza,” the letter reads. “We reject this accusation with contempt.”
“A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent,” it said. “In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas.”
Other signatories include actors Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, Dame Maureen Lipman, Jerry O’Connell, Rebecca De Mornay, Patricia Heaton, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Mark Feuerstein.
Sharon Osbourne, “Gilmore Girls” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, “Mad Men” creator and showrunner Matthew Weiner, “House” creator David Shore, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, executive Haim Saban, Propagate Content executives Ben Silverman and Howard Owens and more signed the letter as well.
“We urge our fellow Jews and our non-Jewish friends to treat the accusation of genocide with revulsion – as the latest in a long history of lies about the Jewish people,” the letter finishes. “‘A lie has no legs,’ notes the ancient Hebrew proverb. We will not allow this lie to stand.”
You can read the full open letter below:
We the undersigned are outraged and sickened by the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people: the lie that Israel committed “genocide” in Gaza. We reject this accusation with contempt.
There is a vigorous debate within the Jewish community over aspects of how this war was fought, and that is a sign of moral health. So is our pain over every innocent life lost. But we must unite in repudiating the lie of genocide.
The unprecedented combat conditions of the war – hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, thousands of boobytrapped homes – the conflating of combatants with “journalists” and “human rights workers,” the ratio of civilian-to-terrorist casualties, considered low for asymmetrical urban warfare, the absence of mass starvation despite repeated claims of imminent catastrophe, the warnings given to civilians before attack: All these factors were erased in the eagerness to indict Israel for genocide.
A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent. In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas.
To accuse Israel of genocide, the massacre of October 7 has been systematically downplayed, while Israeli actions have been distorted and amplified. Israel went to war on October 8 not out of vengeance, as its detractors claim, but to break the Iranian-led siege of terror enclaves on its borders, and to restore its deterrence, without which it cannot survive in the long term in the Middle East. Thousands of rockets and missiles were fired at Israel in the weeks following the massacre, while Hamas starved and tortured 250 Israelis, some of whom were murdered in captivity.
The classic definition of genocide has been changed to apply only to the Gaza war – just as anti-Israel NGOs changed the definition of apartheid and colonialism to apply only to Israel.
Already on October 8, as Israel was still fighting terrorists within its border communities and hadn’t yet begun burying its dead, anti-Zionists began raising the cry of “genocide.” In fact, Israel’s enemies have been accusing it of genocide for decades.
The accusation of genocide has become a pretext for excluding, attacking and even murdering Jews around the world. Its purpose is to delegitimize Jewish self-determination and to turn the only Jewish state into the world’s arch criminal and pariah.
The bitter irony is that Israel, home to half the world’s Jews, is the only country to face a sustained war of attempted genocide – from its inception in 1948 until today.
We note with astonishment but not surprise the overwhelming silence of Israel’s defamers in the face of the atrocities of Iran – perhaps 30,000 civilians murdered in two days, one of the great crimes of our time. Anti-Zionism is not the defender of conscience but its betrayer.
We urge our fellow Jews and our non-Jewish friends to treat the accusation of genocide with revulsion – as the latest in a long history of lies about the Jewish people. “A lie has no legs,” notes the ancient Hebrew proverb.
We will not allow this lie to stand.
