American author and screenwriter Tony Kushner has come to the support of Jonathan Glazer’s controversial acceptance speech at the Oscars. Kushner spoke with the Haaretz podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech, the Gaza War, and antisemitism in the U.S.
He stated that Glazer’s comments at the 2024 Oscars were “unimpeachable and irrefutable.”
On Wednesday’s episode of the podcast, the four-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter opened up on how he perceives the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Notably, Glazers’s speech was condemned by many Jewish stars of the Hollywood industry and ultimately became the matter of an open letter signed by a thousand people.
The Best International Film Academy Award winner for “The Zone of Interest” said in his speech,
Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.
Whether the victims of October — whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?
After being asked if he agrees with Glazer’s speech, Kushner says,
Of course, I mean, who doesn’t?
Further, he adds,
What he was saying is so simple: that Jewishness, Jewish identity, Jewish history, the history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering, must not be used in the campaign as an excuse for a project of dehumanizing or slaughtering other people.
The highly controversial speech is backed up by Kushner, who expressed,
This is a misappropriation of what it means to be a Jew and what the Holocaust meant. He rejects that. Who doesn’t agree?
Nevertheless, Kushner has emerged as one of the first popular American Jewish artists who has openly condemned how Israel is treating Palestinians. The screenwriter is currently in Tel Aviv to promote a production of his award-winning play Angels in America. In the podcast, he also talked about how former U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “drink from the same pathological well.”
Moreover, Kushner did not fail to express his cordial feelings for the renowned commercially successful director Steven Spielberg, with whom he has partnered in four projects.
