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Mark Ruffalo responds to Paramount after being accused of anti-Semitism over merger criticism

August 24, 2026 | | Print Article

Activist actor Mark Ruffalo responded to an accusation that he’s promoting antisemitism over his criticism of the controversial merger between Paramount and Warner Bros.

An outspoken critic of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ruffalo expressed his opposition to the pending merger by sharing a three-year-old video of Oracle executive vice chair Safra Catz touting the company’s work in assisting the Jewish state after the barbaric sneak attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,000 people were killed with hundreds taken captive.

“This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition,” he wrote. “These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you.”

Ruffalo’s post drew fierce pushback from Jewish groups and the company, which said that it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute.”

The actor, who is best known for his role as the Incredible Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie franchise, blasted the characterization of him as being antisemitic as “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”

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“The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people,” he wrote in a lengthy post to X over the weekend.

“This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel. To be clear, my views come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect,” Ruffalo added. “Everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life.”

He said that the merger “has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country” and that scrutiny of Larry and David Ellison and Oracle “is fair and necessary.”

“The $111 billion deal would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public,” Ruffalo concluded.

While Ruffalo whacked a hornet’s nest, some are standing by him, including fellow Hollywood leftist John Cusack who expressed “solidarity” with his fellow actor.

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A frequent trafficker in wild hyperbole, Ruffalo has characterized Israel’s military operation to clean the Hamas terrorists out of Gaza as “genocide” and last year likened the U.S. government to the Taliban when ABC briefly pulled late-night hatemonger Jimmy Kimmel off the air after he blatantly lied that slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA Republican.

“Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe,” Paramount said in a statement to media after Ruffalo’s offensive video. “This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”

Chris Donaldson
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