Hannah Einbinder Criticizes Hollywood Silence on Gaza as 'Cowardice' During Live Podcast Event

Emmy-winning actress Hannah Einbinder has once again emerged as one of Hollywood’s most vocal critics of Israel’s military actions in the Middle East, this time calling out her industry peers for failing to take a public stand against the conflict in Gaza.

Speaking at a live taping of Zeteo’s “Beyond Israelism” podcast in New York City on April 16—which premiered in full online on Monday—Einbinder condemned what she described as the “cowardice” of celebrities who refuse to speak out despite their privilege.

“It pisses me off,” she said, addressing the lack of public statements from her peers. “Because I’m sitting here with [Algerian-Palestinian activist] Mahmoud Khalil, who has so much to risk and who has sacrificed so much. We are all familiar with the details of that.”

Einbinder went on to criticize Hollywood figures who, despite their immense privilege, remain silent on the issue. “I look at these people who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind and they cannot utter a single word,” she said. “It just makes me naive, but I cannot understand it. I really can’t understand it.”

She challenged the notion that some celebrities claim ignorance as an excuse, asking, “What do you do all day? Are you just literally walking around like this?” before physically demonstrating by standing onstage at Riverside Church, covering her eyes, and stumbling around.

“I look at these [Hollywood celebrities] who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind, and they cannot utter a single word.”
— Hannah Einbinder

Einbinder emphasized that her actions are not about bravery but about acknowledging reality. “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 event, titled “Beyond Israelism,” also featured Isabella Hammad, a British-Palestinian author, and Simone Zimmerman, the podcast host. Einbinder was joined onstage by activist Khalil.

When asked about the recent trend of celebrities wearing red-carpet pins or speaking out on political issues, Einbinder argued that the urgency of the situation in Gaza makes the reality harder to ignore. “Well, I think as Israel ramps up its genocide, the reality is harder and harder to ignore for a lot of people,” she said.

She also suggested that Hollywood’s engagement with political issues is often self-serving. “I think also people in Hollywood unfortunately need these issues to affect a white person for them to see it as relating to them,” she explained. “Like, they see Jimmy Kimmel getting taken off the air suddenly, they see Stephen Colbert’s show being canceled by CBS, which is owned by the Ellisons, and they go, ‘How could this possibly happen?’ And it’s like, we—”