Steven Spielberg’s agent Tom Cruise apologizes for pro-Palestinian posts

One of Hollywood’s top agents, whose clients include Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Barack and Michelle Obama’s media company, has apologized for claiming that Israel’s military response to a Hamas attack on October 7 amounted to “genocide.” .

Maha Dakhil, board member and co-head of motion pictures at CAA, one of the entertainment industry’s most prominent talent agencies, reposted a “Free Palestine” thread on Instagram that said, “You’re currently learning who supports genocide.” She also added the additional text, “This is the line for me.”

She also later wrote: “What is more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that there is a genocide.”

Hollywood trade newspapers reported that she faced backlash from within the industry, including within the CAA, and she removed the posts while issuing a two-paragraph apology on social media.

“I made a mistake with a repost on my Instagram story that used hurtful language. Like so many of us, I am suffering from heartbreak. I am proud to stand on the side of humanity and peace. “I am so grateful for Jewish friends and colleagues who made me aware of the impact and educated me,” she wrote.

Dakhil is also a founding member of Times Up, an organization founded following allegations of widespread sexual abuse in Hollywood. Her clients also include pop icon Madonna, director Steve McQueen and actress Natalie Portman. She is also credited with helping Reese Witherspoon set up her production company Hello Sunshine, which is behind the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show and the film Where the crayfish sing.

Newsweek I reached out to CAA on Friday but received no response. After Hamas attacked Israel, the agency posted on social media that “CAA stands with the Israeli people, the Jewish community and all innocent victims in the face of the horrific terrorist attacks.”

On October 7, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history. Israel then launched its heaviest airstrikes to date on Gaza. At least 4,500 people were killed and around 200 Israelis, including children, taken hostage in Israel and Gaza.

Hollywood’s response to the war

In Hollywood, more than 700 celebrities signed an open letter in support of Israel, including Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis and Chris Pine.

But it is not a monolithic community, and many have also expressed their support for the Palestinians, perhaps most vocally media personality and former adult film star Mia Khalifa, who posted a series of supportive messages on social media for the “freedom fighters” attacking Israel have.

She also called a photo of Hamas terrorists a “renaissance painting” and urged them to “turn their phones around and film horizontally.” Your feelings caused playboy to break off contact with her and the magic mushroom dealer Red Light Holland. After he publicly fired her, she posted online that she was “angry with myself for not checking whether I was doing business with Zionists or not.”

Wallace Shawn, best known for his role as an intellectual villain in The Princess Bride who repeatedly used the catchphrase “unimaginable!” appeared at a pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, D.C. and said of Israel’s military response to Hamas that he “doesn’t really believe in revenge, and that’s what this is.”

“It is certainly one of the most deliberate atrocities that I can remember inflicted on a group of people and that my own government supported,” he said.