What Is Wrong With Steven Spielberg?

Hundreds of people in Hollywood have signed a letter, condemning Hamas’ atrocities, calling for the return of the hostages, and expressing their solidarity with Israel as it fights those who would destroy it. These included, among others, Jerry Seinfeld, Barbara Streisand, Chris Rock, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Sorkin, Amy Schumer, Adam Sandler, Eugene Levy, James Corden, Courteney Cox, Diane Von Furstenberg, Gal Gadot, Jack Black, Isla Fisher, Jason Sudeikis, Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Jon Hamm, Judd Apatow, Julianna Margulies, Karlie Kloss, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Liev Schreiber, Martin Short, Olivia Wilde, Sacha Baron Cohen, Sting and Trudie Styler, Tiffany Haddish, Will Ferrell, Billy Crystal, Brooke Shields, Chelsea Handler, Dean Cain, Debra Messing and Elisabeth Shue, and three hundred more.

But one person in Hollywood, its most famous Jewish director, has remained silent, despite pleas from a Holocaust survivor that he speak up. That director is Steven Spielberg. More on the strange silence of Steven Spielberg can be found here: “Holocaust survivors call on Spielberg to condemn Hamas’s massacre,” by Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post, November 11, 2023:

…On November 2, nearly a month after the horrific slaughter of October 7, the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation-USA published an open letter by its president, 94-year-old David Schaecter, calling on Spielberg to make a statement condemning the massacre.

Schaecter begins the letter by expressing his admiration for Spielberg, especially for documenting the horrors of the Holocaust in Schindler’s List. He went on to describe how most of his family members were murdered in the Holocaust and how he survived four years in Nazi camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where he watched his brother die.

Expressing his frustration, Schaecter wrote: “That is why I, along with countless other survivors, are so heartbroken that, since Oct. 7, 2023, you have not spoken out and publicly taken a stand against terrorism, against Hamas and the millions who celebrate the shedding of Jewish blood – and want more.

“With all my heart, I urge you to speak out for the children, women, and men kidnapped and held hostage, and in support of Israel and Israel’s right to defend herself.”…

Asked whether Spielberg is afraid of offending those in Hollywood who are focused only on Israel’s response to the attack without even mentioning the attack itself, one of them said, “That, and he doesn’t want to be seen as supporting the Israeli government in any way… Could he have made a statement that would have condemned the massacre and made it clear that he is very critical of Bibi [Netanyahu] and his policies? Sure. But he didn’t. And he won’t.”

But why should Steven Spielberg, with a net worth of $4.8 billion, be afraid of “offending” anyone in Hollywood? Could they prevent him from making movies when he’s the most successful director in the history of Hollywood? Will someone take away his fortune? And why does Spielberg think that condemning the beheading of babies, the burning alive of children, the rape and murder of young girls, the gouging out of eyes, slicing off of breasts, and cutting off of genitalia both before and after death, the killing of children in front of their parents and of parents in front of their children, would somehow be interpreted as support for the current Israeli government, which he intensely dislikes? Are his left-wing sympathies getting in the way of a simple expression of horror at Hamas, and of solidarity with the people of Israel?

That’s what it looks like. What a terrible moral error.