‘Looking away was never a choice for me’: How Hollywood’s love affair with Israel turned sour

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‘Looking away was never a choice for me’: How Hollywood’s love affair with Israel turned sour Submitted by Fleur Hargreaves on Mon, 11/02/2026 - 10:59 A growing number of actors…

Once Israel could rely on Hollywood to have its reputation laundered, performing the role of a benign ally which shared the values and interests of the West.

However, a growing number of actors and prominent figures in film and TV are confronting the industry’s ongoing complicity with Israel's occupation and its actions in Gaza, which a consensus of experts and human rights groups have called a genocide.

More and more artists are using their platforms to speak about the plight of the Palestinians and have contributed to Israel’s cratering approval among western audiences.

In 2025, US-based organisation Film Workers for Palestine (FWP), established by a group of filmmakers the previous year, released a pledge to end complicity with the genocide in Gaza.

It garnered the signatures of more than 5,500 people in the industry, including A-list actors like Josh O’Connor, Olivia Colman, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and many more.

Inspired by Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, a group of artists who refused to screen their work in apartheid South Africa, signatories pledged not to screen films, appear at or work alongside Israeli film institutions implicated in genocide and apartheid.

“People were ready to publicly put their name to a commitment of refusal... to not be complicit in Israel’s genocide,” an FWP spokesperson told Middle East Eye, adding that there is “power in numbers”.

A major element of Israel’s “normalisation” is through allowing western films to be shown in Israeli cinemas and festivals, they added, but filmmakers can challenge this by specifying consultation requirements for particular territories in their contracts.

“I do think there is a sea-change happening,” the spokesperson told MEE, where “people are thinking about their labour and how it is related, how their art is being used".

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