Mere minutes after some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and executives issued a letter condemning the terror attacks on Israel and the taking of hundreds of hostages, The WGA East has publicly joined the Guild’s West Coast leadership in deciding to stay silent on the murderous siege of the Jewish state two weeks ago.
Admitting this “will strike some of you as inadequate,” WGAE president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and others in the leadership said officially the Guild would be saying nothing on the matter – as a point of policy. At the same time they did note calling out “the atrocities in Israel committed by Hamas on October 7 and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza” on their personal social media feeds.
“We hope you are holding up in these difficult times,” the correspondence to members begins “A number of you have reached out to us in recent weeks about whether or not the WGA East would make a public statement about Israel and Gaza. We want to explain why we have not.”
In the bloodiest attack on the Jewish people since World War II, Hamas’ bloody surprise attack of Oct. 7 has killed at least 1400 and left thousands more injured.
In that context, the WGAE letter sent out Monday goes on to say: “A little over a year ago, the WGA East went through a referendum to find a path forward as a Guild that was now 40% journalists. In doing so, we in leadership agreed to move away from public statements that did not directly involve our Guild, our industries or the labor movement. Such statements hindered journalist members’ work, and divided rather than united us. Since the referendum, we have made two such statements, both about the protection of reporters.”
Noting that their “own personal sentiments … will not suffice,” the letter concludes: “Representing a diversity of workers means our union is strong enough to hold many different views. However, we want to be clear: there is no place in this Guild — none at all — for antisemitism or Islamophobia.”
The letter is jointly signed by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, along with Erica Saleh, Vice President, Film/TV/Streaming; Sara David, Vice President, Online Media; Kathy McGee, Vice President, Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News; and Chris Kyle, Secretary-Treasurer.
While the WGA on both coasts has decided to offer no support to Israel or those attacked, the DGA and the still striking SAG-AFTRA have long since both put out statements condemning “the horrific acts of aggression against the Israeli people on Oct. 7.” Big agencies WME, CAA and UTA have made similar remarks.
Disney’s Bob Iger and Dana Walden have both reached out to their employees over the attacks and crisis, as has Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav. Previously, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Haim Saban, UTA co-founder Jim Berkus, CAA’s Chris Silbermann, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, Paramount’s Brian Robbins and others asserted “We unequivocally stand in solidarity with Israel in the global fight against terrorism.”
Corporately, Disney, Comcast, Skydance and others have donated millions to Magen David Adom, an affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and other organizations.
Protests have broken out around the world over the humanitarian crisis deepening in Gaza as well as the attacks on Israel. It is estimated that thousands of Palestinians have died from Israeli airstrikes over the past two weeks. Delayed for the moment as efforts are made to get hundreds of hostages out, Israel has ordered an immediate evacuation of citizen from the jurisdiction as nearly 300,000 of its soldiers get ready to make their move to invade Gaza. The Israeli government and IDF have said their goal is take out Hamas leaders and destroy the group’s ability to ever conduct terror attacks again.
