Saunders: The ‘bad actors’ virtue-signaling opposition to Israel

By Debra J. Saunders / Las Vegas Review-Journal

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld has a clear view of the “Free Palestine” movement. Speaking at Duke University last week, he said “‘Free Palestine’ is, to me, just… you’re free to say you don’t like Jews. Just say you don’t like Jews,” he said, according to the Duke school newspaper, The Chronicle.

And: “By saying ‘Free Palestine,’ you’re not admitting what you really think. So it’s actually, compared to the Ku Klux Klan, I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ OK, that’s honest.”

But not everyone applauded.

“I feel unsafe,” a Palestinian American student offered to a reporter with local TV station ABC11.

She felt unsafe? Hmm. Seinfeld showed up at Duke to join Omer Shem Tov, a former Israeli hostage abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. I’ll bet Shem Tov would have been thrilled to feel as unsafe as the Duke student when he was held captive for 505 days.

The Seinfeld at Duke story, later reported in The New York Times, provides yet another example of the banality of the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States.

Another comes from Hollywood, where more than 4,000 film workers signed a pledge “to do everything humanly possible to end complicity” in the oppression of Palestinians, as the International Court of Justice “has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza.”

The International Court of Justice does not have much power; except with show biz.

Virtue-signaling “Hollywood has no business leveling charges of this nature,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies Executive Director Jonathan Schanzer told me. They don’t have skin in the game.

Who pays? “The wrong people,” according to the Israeli Film and TV Producers Association, Deadline reported.

“For decades, we Israeli artists, storytellers, and creators have been the primary voices allowing audiences to hear and witness the complexity of the conflict, including Palestinian narratives and criticism of Israeli state policies,” read a statement from the group.

Pledge signatories include actors known for their embrace of leftist positions, such as actor Mark Ruffalo. Good luck finding reporting on The Hulk’s activism against organ-harvesting in China.

Then again, going after China lacks the elite status that bashing the Jewish State holds for other big entertainment signatories, like Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Elliot Page.

Schanzer doesn’t understand how support for Israel sank, esteem-wise, in the arts community; after Israel was attacked.

I agree. Seinfeld should not be an outlier, and yet he is.

Here’s something that’s hard to ignore:

Missing from the Hollywood pledge is any mention of Hamas, the terrorist organization that started this war with a surprise attack that left some 1,200 individuals, including young children, dead.

Hamas wants to do it again.

And still, you see the usual leftists going after the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Who cares if Israeli families were attacked in their homes? Not LaLaLand.

Remember, Schanzer urged, this is a “war Israel neither started nor wanted.”

As for the Hollywood pledge celebrities, “They are choosing the side of Hamas.”