Hamas doesn’t care what Steven Spielberg thinks

The case against demands for celebrities to “speak out” about Israel-Palestine

The director at the premiere of “The Fabelmans,” at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival

I’m one of those people who, ever since the war in Israel and Gaza started, has often found myself mad at people both to my left and my right. 

No, it’s not okay to minimize or deny the horrors of October 7, to vandalize synagogues in the United States, or, in one case I saw a picture of, a delicatessen in Philadelphia that not only has nothing to do with Israel, but went out of business a year ago. Hamas is evil, and the hostages should immediately be released. 

What’s happening in Israel now is not an excuse for antisemitism, in any way, full stop, and anger at what’s happening half a world away should never be visited upon people of the same religion here. The people beating others up outside the Museum of Tolerance tend not to be the ones who are right. 

Also, it’s not so great to have a cavalier attitude about the massive, massive amount of bloodshed in Gaza. You should absolutely not take the government led by scoundrels like Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich at their word about anything they say (and liberal Zionists who would never dream of trusting Trump shouldn’t trust them either). The administration of my alma mater, Brandeis University, should not be in the business of banning student clubs on the basis of speech, nor should everyone completely flip their positions on cancel culture, campus free speech, and speech codes, just for this one issue. 

If you’re Jewish and said or thought anything along the lines of “We were there during the civil rights and BLM, why aren’t The Blacks there for us now,” you probably weren't all that passionate about racial equality in the first place. And Rashida Tlaib probably isn’t in the top 25 of the most antisemitic members of Congress. 

After the current phase of the fighting is over, there will still be Israelis, and there will still be Palestinians, and neither is going to give up on their ambitions to live in their homeland. 

My bias is against poor argumentation, obvious logical fallacies, and dehumanization of the other. As a journalist, it bothers me greatly that so many people don’t understand that the media's job is not to advocate for one side but to tell the story as down the middle as they can- especially when reporting from a war zone. See this horrifying Public Editor column from National Public Radio, which shows that just about every member of NPR’s audience thinks the outlet is hopelessly biased against them (over the years, I’ve heard different people refer to NPR both as “National Palestinian Radio” and “No Palestinians Radio.”) 

I could go on like this for about 20,000 more words, but since this is a movie newsletter, I thought I’d address one thing in particular. 

A group called Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA has written a public open letter to Steven Spielberg, demanding that he speak out “against terrorism, against Hamas, and the millions who celebrate the shedding of Jewish blood.” The letter goes on to say that "as the premier Jewish filmmaker in the world, your silence now is a comfort for our enemies.” The group also chides Spielberg for refusing their offer to meet with them. 

Normally I would never dream of imputing the motives or viewpoint of Holocaust survivors. But this is ridiculous and unfair, for quite a few reasons. 

First, a news story about this from the right-wing news outlet Algemeiner claims that “thousands of Holocaust survivors” have asked Spielberg to speak out, but the letter only has 15 names on it. Maybe the group has “thousands” of members, I don’t know.  

Secondly, Steven Spielberg has done a lot, perhaps more than any other American Jew, to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and the stories of Holocaust survivors, through his work with the USC Shoah Foundation. He’s earned more than a little bit of goodwill and latitude that most people have not. And if he were going to speak up, it probably wouldn’t be at the behest of a group that has accused him of providing comfort to Hamas. (And if a group said that about me, I wouldn’t rush to meet with them either.) 

Thirdly, I’m growing tired of this trend of campaigns demanding that a specific famous person “speak out” about a specific thing when they haven’t up until that point (We’ve now seen this demand made of Taylor Swift, by those on both sides of the Mideast conflict.) These demands are always made assuming that the person will say exactly what those making the demand want to say. And for Spielberg, he probably wouldn’t say exactly what the letter writers are asking. 

We have a pretty good idea of what Spielberg’s views are on Israel, because in 2005, he made a movie, Munich, about exactly that, and he gave countless interviews at the time elaborating further. In short, Spielberg is a liberal Zionist, who loves the state of Israel and would like to see peace with the Palestinians. He doesn’t believe that a massacre by Palestinians against Israelis is justified (whether in 1972 or 2023) but also doesn't think that Israel can kill their way out of the conflict. Perhaps his views have changed in the 18 years since, but he hasn’t indicated that. 

And perhaps most importantly, where is the assumption coming from that Spielberg speaking out would make any difference at all, and that not doing so would amount to “a comfort for our enemies”? Why would Hamas care what Steven Spielberg thinks? Do you think if Spielberg (or Taylor Swift) asked for the hostages to be released, Hamas would be moved whatsoever by that appeal? 

They weren’t moved when the president of the United States asked — or by the dozens of celebrities, from Jerry Seinfeld to Gal Gadot to Quentin Tarantino, who have spoken out — so why would they listen to an American Jewish filmmaker? Do they think Hamas, which has a history of denying the Holocaust, is moved by the gravity of Spielberg’s Holocaust memorial work? Do they think Yahya Sinwar was a big E.T. fan growing up, or something? 

The survivors’ letter concludes by stating that “we do not need another film in three years about the horrors of October 7. Instead, we need you and others to speak out NOW.” Y.M. Cinema Magazine has demanded the opposite: It has issued a call for Spielberg to make a movie about the events of that day.

Spielberg, who has not yet announced his next film, has not indicated that he would have any interest in making that sort of film. He vowed, shortly after the September 11 attacks, that he would “never make a movie about any of the events of 9/11.” And he held to that, although there were subtle and not-so-subtle references in subsequent Spielberg films from Munich to The Terminal. I imagine any October 7 film he would make would resemble Munich, and he of course already made Munich. 

(There is, in fact, a movie about that, not from Spielberg but from the Israeli government. Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre, which consists of the uncut footage of the killings themselves- much of it filmed, January 6-style, by the Hamas killers themselves. I was invited last week to a public screening of that reel but was not able to attend. I had a prior engagement- I assure you it wasn’t because of any fear of zombies on Fentanyl, just ready to eat Jews.)

I think Steven Spielberg has earned the right to speak out about political causes, and to make the movies he wants to make, on his own terms using his own judgment. And he certainly should not be accused of complicity with evil, if he chooses to do neither.