Overview
- The open letter, which was posted Thursday, was authored by Yossi Klein Halevi, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Rabbi Micah Odenheimer and Professor Jonathan Karp and drew more than 5,000 signatures from entertainment, academic, political and business leaders.
- The letter’s core claim is that the 1948 UN Genocide Convention requires proof of specific intent to destroy a protected group and that that legal threshold has not been met in the Gaza campaign.
- Signatories include former Paramount executives Shari Redstone and Sherry Lansing, actors Debra Messing and Mayim Bialik, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, scholars such as Steven Pinker, and public figures from across media and government.
- The release intensifies ongoing factional clashes in Hollywood where competing open letters and public statements have become a tool for signaling positions in the Israel–Gaza debate, including recent back-and-forths involving Mark Ruffalo.
- Creative Community for Peace and signers warn the 'genocide' label has been used to justify exclusion and violence against Jews, a claim they say could raise real-world security and social consequences even though it does not change legal findings or conditions on the ground in Gaza.