Oliver Stone's first apology wasn't enough for the Anti-Defamation League, and the organization said so.
So Stone, who over the weekend was quoted complaining of what he called Jewish domination of the media, communicated directly with Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL — and apologized again.
Stone said: “I do agree that it was wrong of me to say that Israel or the pro-Israel lobby is to blame for America’s flawed foreign policy. Of course that’s not true and I apologize that my inappropriately glib remark has played into that negative stereotype.”
Stone added, “I want you to know that I am categorically opposed to anti-Semitism – and all other racist ideologies.”
This time, Foxman accepted Stone's apology. “I believe he now understands the issues and where he was wrong, and this puts an end to the matter,” he said in a statement.
Stone's second apology may have satisfied Foxman, but not Israeli-American billionaire and media mogul Haim Saban, who on Tuesday called for CBS to cancel Stone's upcoming Showtime series, "A Secret History of America."
"Abe Foxman and the ADL do holy work, but they're battling multiple battles every day, and on multiple fronts," he told TheWrap. They have therefore achieved their goal when they manage to set the record straight.
"My problem with Oliver Stone is that he not only made anti-Semitic statements (his apology doesn't cover all of them), I am equally offended by his defense of the likes of Hugo Chavez,as well as his anti-American ranting."
Stone kicked off a media firestorm over the weekend by telling a reporter from London’s Sunday Times that Adolf Hitler did more damage to Russia than he did to the Jews. Stone also complained to the Times about "Jewish domination of the media."
On Monday, Stone tried to make nice: "In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity — and it was an atrocity."
But Monday's statement drew this response from the ADL: "Oliver Stone's apology stops short and is therefore insufficient. While he now admits that Jews do not control Hollywood, the media and other industries, he ignores his assertion that Jews are '…the most powerful lobby in Washington' and that 'Israel has f***ed up United States foreign policy.' This is another conspiratorial anti-Semitic canard that Mr. Stone needs to repudiate."