After the controversy sparked by his provocative tweets against Israel published on Ynet and demands from the Jewish organization Stop Antisemitism to have him fired from his talent agency, actor John Cusack took to Twitter Monday night to claim that "it's all lies"and eventually deleted the post.
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Cusack's denial comes two days after reports emerged about the renowned actor, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, frequently sharing inflammatory statements and promoting antisemitic stereotypes on his X social media account. Since the October 7 tragedy, he has posted phrases like "F**k Israel," referring to it as the "murder state" for his 1.8 million followers. He has called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "Zionist pig" and labeled billioaire and X owner Elon Musk as the "creator of the country's propaganda, everything this man says is a lie."
Cusack denies that Zionism is part of Judaism and describes Musk's visit to the Auschwitz Nazi extermination camp as an endorsement of "white supremacy." Cusack has also celebrated the filing of a lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and criticized Western countries' decision to cut funding to UNRWA following the involvement of its employees in the October 7 tragedy, retweeting claims of a "collective punishment."
Cusack also reposted an X post which read: "Why the Guardian's 'Hamas mass rape' story doesn't pass the sniff test; The woman leading the "Hamas mass rape" campaign - now an academic - is a former spokesperson for the Israeli military. Their job, as any honest reporter will tell you, is to lie to journalists to excuse Israel's incessant war crimes."
In response to these actions and more, Stop Antisemitism, an organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, publicly condemned Cusack on the X platform, dubbing him the "antisemite of the week" for his tweets denying the rape cases that occurred on October 7, for labeling Hamas as a "charity organization," and for asserting that the Israeli government funds Hamas. In addition, the organization shared the email address of Cusack's talent agency, urging the public to send emails demanding the termination of its association with him.
Cusack retorted with: "Wow - a complete list of lies," in response to the tweet from Stop Antisemitism. However, he deleted this comment after a few hours. Another deleted response from Cusack, as reported by Fox News, accuses the organization, along with the conservative group "International Legal Forum," of using bigotry as a weapon against peace activists. He further questioned: "Dehumanizing and smearing people - I want to know if the people who follow them are aware of this, and if they are aware, do they condemn this degrading behavior?" When a user attempted to defend him, Cusack responded: "They are trying to spread [things] to distract our attention," referring to the current wave of criticism against him.
It is worth noting that the Stop Antisemitism organization responded to Cusack's allegations by providing evidence in the form of screenshots of the posts he shared. One of those posts claimed that "Considering Hamas was originally a charity organization funded and supported by Israel. You'll have to ask Netanyahu why he funded and put Hamas in power."
Israeli producer Avi Lerner ("Rambo," "The Expendables") joined the criticism against Cusack on Tuesday morning. In an interview with Ynet Live, Lerner revealed that, after Cusack's remarks were published, he sent an angry email to the actor, with whom he had previously collaborated on films like "The Paperboy" and "The Contract." In the email, Lerner promised that Cusack would not find any more work in Hollywood and sarcastically suggested that he could seek employment from Hamas, perhaps even acting in one of their tunnels.
Lerner mentioned in the interview that he was not entirely surprised by Cusack's comments.
"I was surprised, but the biggest surprise was regarding what happened on October 7," he said. "I no longer expect any actor to support us, but I do expect that they won't come out against us in the manner that John Cusack did, and that truly bothers me because I know him well. My goal is to remove him from the agency that represents him. I have spoken with the agency owners, and they will likely release a statement soon stating that he is no longer part of their roster. I did the same with Susan Sarandon. Once the agency no longer represents him in the industry, nobody will approach him, and nobody will seek his services."