Actor Jon Voight has had a rocky relationship with his daughter, actress Angelina Jolie, and since the October 7 Hamas massacre, and the 85-year-old actor has found it necessary to criticize her more than usual.
Following the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza, Jolie expressed her support for the Palestinians, and made her position clear in a social media post in which she accused Israel of bombing civilian targets in Gaza and turning the coastal strip into a "mass grave." Jolie not only angered Israelis, but also her father, who is an ardent supporter of Israel. "I'm disappointed in her," he said in response at the time in a post on the X platform.
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Actor Jon Voight and his daughter, actress Angelina Jolie
(Photo: Lester Cohen/WireImage)
In an interview published this week in Variety magazine, Voight explained why he thinks Jolie was influenced to make the wrong choice. “She has been exposed to propaganda,” he says. “She’s been influenced by antisemitic people. Angie has a connection to the UN, and she’s enjoyed speaking out for refugees. But these people are not refugees.”
According to Variety reporter Stephen Rodrick, Voight never lets go of his daughter's position as an activist, "criticizing her Palestinian stance repeatedly, like a candidate going after an opponent in a 30-second ad."
"I think she hasn’t been available to this information because in Hollywood people don’t share this kind of stuff,” he says. “They’re way off. They have no idea what’s going on. It’s a bubble.”
“I love my daughter. I don’t want to fight with my daughter,” he tells Variety, insisting that his relationship wit his daughter is important to him. “But the fact is, I think she has been influenced by the U.N. From the beginning, it’s been awful with human rights. They call it human rights, but it’s just anti-Israel bashing. She’s ignorant of what the real stakes are and what the real story is because she’s in the loop of the United Nations.”
Voight told Variety that his father worked at a Westchester country club whose membership was made up mostly of Jewish families shunned by WASP golf courses. It left Voight with a specific idea of how an oppressed people should rise above their status, according to the reporter.
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“I love my daughter. I don’t want to fight with my daughter,” Jon voight says of Angelina Jolie
(Photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImage)
“As a little boy, I remember seeing a Life Magazine picture of a boy in a striped suit behind barbed wire,” Voight says on more than one occasion. “And I thought, ‘That could be me.’ I identified with the suffering of these kids. What I knew very early on from my father’s work and the dinner table was that the people who started this club couldn’t get into other clubs when they came here from Europe. And so what did they do? They simply gathered together, got some money, bought land and made their own club. They didn’t riot or protest. From then, I was connected to their culture.”
Voight is convinced that his father’s relationships with the Jews at the club changed him forever and allowed him to have the life he has lived.
The Variety reporter asks Voight if he thinks that instead of attacking Jolie on Instagram about her views on Israel, he might just pick up the phone. He shakes his head. “It’s hard for me to talk to her about this,” he says with a resigned look. “She doesn’t really want to share this kind of stuff, because she’s of another mind about it.”
During the interview, Voight spouts conspiracy theories, including that evil is spreading across the world via satanists like Jewish philanthropist George Soros.
While Voight was being interviewed, a woman approached him, holding a fresh challah she bought for Shabbat dinner, and tells him: "“I just want to thank you for all you have done for Israel. It means so much to all of us.”
Voight thanks the woman, but she adds: “You should play Bibi in a movie. You would be perfect!” Voight responds: “He’s a great, great man, but I’m not going to play him."