Michael Cieply: Haim Saban Roars Like A Mogul, And The Echoes Still Sound

13.05.2024 - 15:22

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deadline.com:

The loudest voice in Hollywood last week belonged to Haim Saban. “Bad . . . Bad . . . bad decision, on all levels,” he roared, in an email to President Joseph Biden, sent via White House aides, denouncing the Administration’s announced plan to withhold bombs and artillery shells from Israel if it proceeds against Hamas in the population centers of Rafah.

About the policy itself, opinions vary (to put it mildly). Congressional representative Ilhan Omar happily declared that pro-Palestinian protests had worked.

Former Biden spokesperson Jen Psaki said Biden should have used his “leverage” sooner. But by week’s end, Presidential surrogates, feeling heat from critics, were looking for semantic wiggle room; Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Biden was solid behind Israel, but had been guilty of ‘imprecision.’ In any case, it is impossible not to be impressed by the clear, emphatic and melodramatic declaration from Saban, whose brief missive—addressing “YOU Mr.

President”—warned of “the terrible message to our allies in the region,” that we can “flip from doing the right thing to bending to political pressure.” Saban then applied some pressure of his own, reminding Biden—for whom he had raised millions of dollars as co-chair of a political fundraiser in February—that there are “more Jewish voters, who care about Israel, than Muslim voters that care about Hamas.” In a political era tainted by hidden agendas, party-line hatred and no small amount of name-calling, Haim Saban, philanthropist and political donor, had done one of the most difficult things imaginable: He had called out a powerful ally who, in his view, had undercut a cause in which he passionately believes.

Michael Cieply: Haim Saban Roars Like A Mogul, And The Echoes Still Sound

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