Paramount criticizes pledge by entertainers to boycott Israeli film institutions

FILE - The main gate to Paramount Studios is seen on Melrose Avenue, July 8, 2015, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

WASHINGTON — Paramount said on Friday it condemned a pledge signed earlier this week by more than 4,000 actors, entertainers and producers, including some Hollywood stars, to not work with Israeli film institutions that they see as being complicit in the abuse of Palestinians by Israel.

Paramount became the first major studio to respond to the pledge released on Monday.

Some organizations have faced calls for boycotts and protests over ties with the Israeli government as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from Israel’s military assault grows, and images of starving Palestinians, including children, spark global outrage.

“We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace,” Paramount said.

“We need more engagement and communication - not less,” it added.

The pledge from earlier this week said it was not urging anyone to stop working with Israeli individuals but instead “the call is for film workers to refuse to work with Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses.” Film Workers For Palestine, which published the original pledge, reiterated as much after Paramount’s statement.

Israeli film institutions had engaged in “whitewashing or justifying” abuse of Palestinians, the pledge had said, drawing parallels with how entertainers had made a similar pledge in the past against apartheid-era South Africa.

Signatories included actors Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, Riz Ahmed, Javier Bardem and Cynthia Nixon.

“We sincerely hope that Paramount, in its statement today, isn’t intentionally misrepresenting the pledge in an attempt to silence our colleagues in the film industry,” Film Workers for Palestine added.

U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population, and set off a starvation crisis. Multiple rights experts and scholars assess it amounts to genocide.

Israel casts its actions as self-defense after an October 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.