Celebrities who attended Sunday’s Oscars awards ceremony in Los Angeles’ Dolby Theater have come under fire for wearing a pro-Palestinian pin that many say supports terrorism against Israelis.
Noa Tishby, who briefly served as Israel’s antisemitism envoy, said that sporting the pin was tantamount to a “display of Jew-hatred.” She called out Billie Eilish, Finneas, Mark Ruffalo, Ava DuVernay, Ramy Youssef and Quannah Chasinghorse for wearing the Artists4Ceasefire pins.
“Notably absent were the yellow pins representing the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7,” Tishby tweeted. “If you’re calling for a ceasefire without calling for the release of the hostages, you are promoting Hamas’s agenda by questioning Israel’s right to self-defense.”
According to Artists4Ceasefire, the red pin represents “support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.”
However, to Israelis, the red hand displayed on the pin is reminiscent of the October 2000 Ramallah lynching of IDF reservists Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami, who had accidentally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah.
While in the custody of P.A. police, the two were stabbed and beaten to death, their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets. The most visceral image from that day was of one of the terrorists proudly waving his blood-soaked hands from the police station window.
“The image of red hands is associated with one horrific event imprinted on the minds of Israelis and Palestinians. The 2000 Ramallah lynching of Israelis. This symbolism isn’t a coincidence,” the official X account of the Israeli Foreign Ministry tweeted on Monday.
“If you’re not familiar with perhaps the most iconic image of the Second Intifada, maybe don’t broadcast your ignorance,” added Israeli Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Eylon Levy.
The bloody-handed Aziz Salha, who was arrested in 2001 by Israeli forces, was released 10 years into his life sentence as part of the deal to free IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held prisoner for five years by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 massacre of some 1,200 people in Israel, was released in the same deal.