More Than 65 Palestinian Filmmakers, Including Hany Abu Assad and Elia Suleiman, Sign Letter Accusing Hollywood of ‘Dehumanizing’ Palestinians (EXCLUSIVE)

A group of almost 70 Palestinian filmmakers — including two-time Oscar nominee Hany Abu Assad and acclaimed director Elia Suleiman — have signed a strongly-worded letter in which they accuse Hollywood of “dehumanising” Palestinians on screen over decades, a factor they assert has helped enable the ongoing devastation in Gaza.

The letter — also signed by the likes of multiple-award winners including Michel Khleifi, Mai Masri, Najwa Najjar, Farah Nabulsi and the 22-strong list of directors behind the compilation of shorts “From Ground Zero,” Palestine‘s current submission to the Oscars — also expresses outrage and what it described as the “inhumanity and racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry towards our people, even during this most difficult of times.” 

The letter marks the first collaborative initiative by Palestinian filmmakers since the horrific events of Oct. 7, in which terror group Hamas — which rules Gaza — killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage, and the ongoing retaliatory attacks on Gaza by Israel, which have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians (according to the Palestinian Health Authority) and led to a humanitarian crisis in the territory.

Despite its fierce criticism of Hollywood, the letter does thank the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for “standing up to pressure and insisting on freedom of expression,” by refusing attempts to disqualify a Gaza-focused documentary from the 2024 Emmy nominations.

The Peabody Award-winning “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive,” by Palestinian journalist, activist and filmmaker Bisan Owda and chronicling her family’s plight as they flee bombardment of their home in by Israel, is nominated for the News and Documentary Emmys for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form. However, there were calls by a U.S.-based pro-Israel group for the nomination to be rescinded, with a letter signed by the likes of Debra Messing, Sherry Lansing, Rick Rosen and Haim Saba accusing Owda of having ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a United States-designated terrorist group.

In response, NATAS president Adam Sharp said that Owda’s nomination would not be rescinded, writing in a letter that the organisation had been “unable to corroborate these reports” of Owda’s alleged involvement and “found no grounds, to date, upon which to overturn the editorial judgment of the independent journalists who reviewed the material.”

See the letter by the Palestinian filmmakers list of signatures below:

We, Palestinian filmmakers, appreciate and thank the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) for standing up to pressure and insisting on freedom of expression by upholding Bisan Owda’s 2024 News and Documentary Emmy nomination for the documentary, “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” 

This film is narrated by the award-winning and inspiring 25-year-old Palestinian journalist, Bisan Owda, who has risked her life to share with the world reports and stories about the resilience, resistance and survival of ordinary Palestinian families in the face of Israel’s ongoing, livestreamed genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip. 

Trying to censor Bisan’s voice is only the latest repressive attempt to deny Palestinians the right to reclaim our narrative, share our history, and in this case bring attention to the atrocities our people are facing in the hopes that we can bring an end to them. We well understand the power of image and cinema, and for far too long we have been outraged at the inhumanity and racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry towards our people, even during this most difficult of times. 

Through our films, we have tried to present alternative narratives, depictions and images to reverse the stereotypical, dehumanizing “worthless, disposable beings” image which enables the whitewashing and/or justification of the crimes perpetrated for decades against Palestinians. But why must we always put on our “boxing gloves” to defend our art against ruthless censorship that targets us merely on the basis of our identity, not our creativity? 

We wholeheartedly welcomed the nomination of Bisan Owda’s film for an Emmy as an indication that, after so many years of Israel’s apartheid and settler-colonial rule over the Palestinian people, the relentless, decades-old dehumanization of Palestinians on small and big screens in the U.S., in Hollywood in particular, was beginning to give way to a more ethical stance. The censorship attempt against the film, though, was a reality check of sorts. We must still contend with and fiercely challenge the anti-Palestinian and generally anti-Arab racist propaganda that remains all too prevalent in Western entertainment media.  

Although we are deeply concerned at how this dehumanization is a danger to our very existence as Palestinians, we are cognizant of how it also puts many racialized communities around the world, including in the West, at risk of a similar fate as the “might makes right” credo prevails. 

We call on our international colleagues in the film industry, visionaries for the kind of world we would like to live in, to speak out against this genocide and the erasure, racism and censorship that enable it; to do everything humanly possible to stop and end complicity with this unspeakable horror; and to stand against working with production companies that are deeply complicit in dehumanizing Palestinians, or whitewashing and justifying Israel’s crimes against us. 

This has to stop. Now.

Signed: