‘Hacks’ star Hannah Einbinder slams Hollywood silence on Israel, Gaza
by The Washington Times AI News Desk · The Washington TimesHannah Einbinder, the Emmy-winning star of HBO’s “Hacks,” is blasting fellow Hollywood celebrities for declining to call Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “genocide,” saying their silence leaves her bewildered and angry.
The actress made the remarks on Zeteo’s “Beyond Israelism” podcast, which released the full episode Monday, with Ms. Einbinder seated alongside Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
“It pisses me off,” Ms. Einbinder said. “I look at these people who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind, and they cannot utter a single word.”
She added that she finds it hard to accept when fellow celebrities plead ignorance. “I hear people say that they don’t know enough and I — I don’t, it’s like, OK, so what do you do all day?” she said.
Ms. Einbinder also pushed back against the idea that her own outspokenness constitutes bravery. “I always resist the idea that what I am doing is in any way brave because I don’t want cowardice to be a metric by which I judge bravery,” she said. “What I am doing is having eyes and seeing reality and saying what I am seeing.”
The actress suggested that Hollywood’s engagement with politically sensitive issues follows a racial hierarchy. “People in Hollywood, unfortunately, need these issues to affect a white person for them to see it as relating to them,” she said, pointing to the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show by CBS — owned by the Ellison family — and the removal of Jimmy Kimmel from the air as examples that finally prompted industry concern about free speech.
“And it’s like, we know how because we saw students and professors and journalists and authors and Palestinian folks be silenced and fired and expelled and imprisoned,” she added, according to Breitbart.
Mr. Khalil, who appeared alongside Ms. Einbinder on the podcast, is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who was a graduate student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a prominent organizer of pro-Palestinian campus protests in 2024. He was arrested by federal immigration agents in March 2025, and a federal judge ordered his release in June of that year after ruling his detention unconstitutional.
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Ms. Einbinder has been one of Hollywood’s most vocal critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. In September 2025, she won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in “Hacks” and ended her acceptance speech with the words, “Go Birds, f—- ICE, and free Palestine.” She also signed a Film Workers for Palestine pledge committing signatories not to work with Israeli film institutions they view as complicit in genocide and apartheid.
Ms. Einbinder is set to attend the Cannes Film Festival as the star of “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” premiering in the Un Certain Regard section.
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