Mark Ruffalo embroiled in antisemitism row with Paramount over Israel

American actor and producer Mark Rufallo has become entangled in an escalating antisemitism row with Paramount Pictures, with support for Israel taking center stage.

The public feud began after the 58-year-old Oscar-nominated actor posted on Instagram Friday that Larry Ellison is using the American technology company Oracle, which he co-founded, to fund his son David Ellison’s acquisition of Warner Bros, linking Oracle’s military technology contracts with Israel.

Rufallo, who has been a strong opponent of Paramount’s pending takeover of Warner Bros., as well as of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres, shared a years-old video clip of an Oracle executive discussing technology provided to the Israeli military.

“These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you,” the “Hulk” actor wrote. “Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

Paramount blasted the actor’s usage of the words “genocide” and “apartheid” in connection with the business transaction as peddling in antisemitism, and said that it does not tolerate prejudice of any kind.

“We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” Paramount said in a statement. “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong—they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe.”

An unapologetic Rufallo rejected the accusation of antisemitism as “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”

“Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing the Jewish people,” he tweeted on X. “This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.”

As the fracas escalated, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center backed Paramount, commending it for “drawing a line” when legitimate debate gives way to antisemitism.

“At a time when antisemitism is too often minimized, rationalized or repackaged in more socially acceptable language, this kind of moral clarity matters,” Jim Berk, CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote on X.  “Invoking Israel in an issue where it is completely irrelevant is a textbook case of obsession and demonization.”