Agency drops Susan Sarandon for saying Jews ‘getting taste’ of what Muslims go through

Oscar-nominated US actress under fire for repeatedly accusing Israel of genocide, denying elements of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught and downplaying scope of antisemitism

Susan Sarandon at the Toronto International Film Festival at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 10, 2018, in Toronto. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Susan Sarandon at the Toronto International Film Festival at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 10, 2018, in Toronto. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

US actress Susan Sarandon has been dropped as a client by Hollywood talent agency UTA after she said at a recent pro-Palestinian rally that US Jews fearing for their safety amid a spike in antisemitism “are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”

A spokesperson for the agency confirmed the decision to Deadline on Tuesday.

During a rally in New York last week, the Oscar-nominated actress declared that “there are a lot of people that are afraid, afraid to be Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.”

Her comments drew ire online, and author Asra Nomani, who is Indian American and has Muslim heritage, wrote on X: “Let me give you ‘a taste’ of what it ‘feels like’ to be a Muslim in America: My dad didn’t have to become a second-class indentured servant to one of the many tyrants of Muslim countries…My mom?… Being Muslim in America meant she got to live FREE with the wind in her hair…You think the Muslim dictatorship of Qatar allows a pathway to citizenship for Muslim slaves, servants or Palestinian Muslims? Hell no…”

“Please don’t minimize the experience of Jewish Americans by sanitizing the hell that it is for Muslims living in Muslim countries and vilifying America for the life — and freedoms — she offers Muslims like my family.”

During the speech, a video of which was published online by the New York Post, Sarandon also urged attendees to “have a conversation” and “listen to the facts” about the situation in Gaza, but said  that they “don’t have to go through the entire history of that region” in order to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“You can just show the babies that have been dying in incubators and the love that people have for their loved ones when they’re blown to bits,” she added. “Those images are enough to show that something is drastically wrong.”

At the same rally, Sarandon, who is not Jewish, told the crowd that being critical of Israel is not antisemitic.

“There’s a terrible thing that’s happened where antisemitism has been confused with speaking up against Israel,” she said. “I am against antisemitism. I am against Islamophobia.”

The actress has been intensely critical of Israel throughout the war with Hamas in Gaza, which was triggered on October 7 when some 3,000 Hamas terrorists burst through the border into southern Israel, killed at least 1,200 people and took some 240 hostages.

In response, Israel has launched an aerial campaign followed by a ground offensive, vowing to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, which the terror group has ruled since 2007. The fighting has been centered mainly on the northern part of the Gaza Strip and the Hamas-run health ministry has said that more than 14,000 people have been killed. That figure cannot be verified by independent sources and is believed to include Hamas terrorists as well as civilian victims of misfired Palestinian rockets.

Following the onslaught on October 7, Sarandon’s usually active account on X went quiet, and it wasn’t until a day later that she began to post again, but only to share items condemning Israel and the IDF, while making no mention of the Hamas atrocities.

As the war has unfolded, she has continued to share accusations of genocide and war crimes by Israel, has shared misinformation denying elements of Hamas’s massacre inside the Jewish state, and has characterized Hamas as a “resistance group” rather than a terror group.

Her remarks last Friday were the latest in a series of controversial speeches the actress has made at various pro-Palestinian rallies.

At a rally earlier in November, she told attendees that it was important to examine the events of October 7 in the context of Israel’s history, which some saw as her blaming Israelis for the Hamas attacks they had endured.

“So many people don’t understand the context in which this October 7 assault happened,” she said, “They don’t understand the history of what has been happening to the Palestinian people for 75 years. So this is an opportunity to educate people if they can have an open mind.”

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