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.

Why it’s important 

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

Some organizations have faced calls for boycott 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.

Key quotes 

“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.”

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.”

Israeli film institutions had engaged in “whitewashing or justifying” abuse of Palestinians, it 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, among others.

Context 

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 Octuber 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.