Paramount on Friday sharply denounced a proposed boycott of Israeli film institutions by a group that calls itself Film Workers for Palestine and is supported by dozens of Hollywood luminaries.
Earlier this week, the group launched an open letter pledging to withhold support for Israeli film festivals, production companies and other organizations that the group said were involved in “genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
The letter has been signed by hundreds of individuals, including filmmakers Jonathan Glazer, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo.
“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” the group wrote. “In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”
The group pledged “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies,” which have been “implicated” in attacks on Palestinians. The group described its effort as being inspired by filmmakers joining the South African boycott over apartheid, a global campaign decades ago that proved influential in helping overturn the nation’s government.
Paramount, which was acquired last month by the Larry Ellison family and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, made clear its opposition to the filmmakers’ campaign.
“We believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” said an emailed statement attributed to the company. “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 is the first studio to state a position on the divisive issue. An insider who was not authorized to speak about the internal debate said Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison and the company’s leadership team felt strongly about the need to speak out in opposition, believing that individuals should not be boycotted based on their nationality.
“The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world,” Paramount said. “We need more engagement and communication — not less.”
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump’s four-day visit to the Middle East was marked by a flurry of activity: Billion-dollar trade deals, a meeting with Syria’s new president and diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran.
But the fate of Palestinian people and the war in Gaza, where the dead are piling up in recent days under an Israeli onslaught, appears to have received short shrift.
Trump finished his visit to the Persian Gulf on Friday, touting his abilities as a deal maker while he forged trade agreements worth hundreds of billions of dollars — his administration says trillions — from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
But despite his repeated insistence that only he could bring a peaceful end to the world’s intractable problems — and saying Friday that “we have to help” Palestinians — there were no breakthroughs on the Israel-Hamas war, and the president repeated his suggestion of U.S. involvement in the Gaza Strip.
Noting the widespread destruction in the territory, Trump said, “I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good — make it a freedom zone. Let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone.”
President Trump walks down the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Friday.
(Luis M. Alvarez / Associated Press)
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1.Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 15, 2025.(Jehad Alshrafi / Associated Press)2.Islam Hajjaj holds her 6-year-old daughter Najwa, who suffers from malnutrition, at a shelter in central Gaza City, on May 11, 2025. Amnesty International accuses Israel on April 29 of committing a ‘’live-streamed genocide’’ against Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged territory, claims Israel dismisses as ‘’blatant lies’’.(Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Trump’s comments Friday came as the Israel military began the first stages of a ground offensive it called “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” — an apparent fulfillment of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month that he would launch an attack on Gaza to destroy Hamas and liberate detainees if there wasn’t a ceasefire or a hostage deal by the time Trump finished his time in the Middle East.
Trump’s concerns “are deals that benefit the U.S. economy and enhance the U.S.’ global economic positions,” or preventing costly military entanglements in Iran or Yemen, said Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, based in Qatar.
“Unlike Syria or Iran,” Rabbani said, “ending the Gaza war provides no economic benefit to the U.S., and doesn’t risk American troops getting involved in a new war.”
Ahead of Trump’s four-day trip, there were moves that had buoyed hopes of a ceasefire or allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, which Israel has blocked for more than two months as aid groups warn of impending famine. On May 12, Hamas released Edan Alexander, a soldier with Israeli and U.S. citizenship and the last American detainee in its hands, as a goodwill gesture to Trump, and there were rumors of a meeting between Trump and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But that meeting never took place, and instead of a ceasefire, Israel launched strikes that health authorities in the enclave say have killed at least 250 people in the last few days, 45 of them children, according to UNICEF.
A man looks at burned vehicles in the Barkan Industrial area, near Salfit in the occupied West Bank, on Friday, after more than 17 Palestinian workers’ cars were reportedly set on fire by Israeli settlers the night before. Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank where Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.
(John Wessels / AFP via Getty Images)
Netanyahu insists his aim is to destroy Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing roughly 250 hostages. Israel’s military campaign has so far killed at least 53,000 people in Gaza — including combatants and civilians, but mostly women and children, according to health authorities there — and many believe that toll to be an undercount.
A ceasefire that Trump’s incoming administration brokered in January broke down in mid-March after Israel refused to continue second-stage negotiations.
“We expect the U.S. administration to exert further pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to open the crossings and allow the immediate entry of humanitarian aid, food, medicine and fuel to hospitals in the Gaza Strip,” said Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media advisor, in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday.
He added that such moves were part of the understandings reached with U.S. envoys during the latest meetings, under which Hamas released Alexander.
Yet there has been little sign of that pressure, despite fears in Israeli circles that Trump’s actions before and during his Middle East trip — which skipped Israel, saw Trump broker a deal with Yemen’s Houthis and lift sanctions on Syria without Israeli input — was a snub to Netanyahu.
President Trump speaks on Air Force One at Abu Dhabi International Airport before departing on Friday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he left the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, on Friday, Trump sidestepped questions about the renewed Israeli offensive, saying, “I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month, and we’re going to see.”
“We have to help also out the Palestinians,” he said. “You know, a lot of people are starving in Gaza, so we have to look at both sides.”
On the first day of Trump’s Mideast trip, in Saudi Arabia, he announced that the U.S. was ending sanctions on Syria, now headed by an Islamist government that overthrew longtime dictator Bashar Assad in December. He met Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and praised him as a “tough guy” and a “fighter.”
Israel views Al-Sharaa’s government as a threat and has made incursions into its territory since Assad’s fall, and launched a withering airstrike campaign to defang the fledgling government’s forces.
When asked whether he knew Israel opposed the lifting of sanctions, Trump said, “I don’t know, I didn’t ask them about that.”
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, on Friday.
(Abdel Kareem Hana / Associated Press)
Commentators say that although Washington’s leverage over Israel should make a Gaza ceasefire easier for a Trump administration seeking to project itself as an effective peacemaker, the conflict there remains a low priority for Trump.
“Gaza may seem like low hanging fruit on the surface, but it’s also low political yield — how does acting decisively on Gaza benefit Trump? It doesn’t,” said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
He added that going along with Netanyahu would be more in line with Trump’s vision for owning and remaking Gaza, while on Iran, Syria and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, it makes sense to separate U.S. interests from Israel’s.
“Palestinians have nothing to offer Trump. And the Gulf states offered their investments for free, with no conditions on Gaza. Gaza is a moral imperative, not a strategic one, and Trump is not known for acting on moral grounds.”
