A group led by top Hollywood executives and linked to the Israeli government is trying to smear a film about a little girl killed by Israeli forces.
An obscure group of entertainment industry professionals is smearing the film, ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab,’ in a concerted effort to stop it from winning an Oscar for Best International Feature Film. While the group purports to be “apolitical,” it has ties to a pro-Israel organization that’s shut down speech in the US.
‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ is an Oscar-nominated documentary-drama film that depicts the Palestinian Red Crescent’s response to the Israeli military’s brutal killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family members – a case known around the world as emblematic of the Israeli government’s ruthless genocide of Palestine.
The Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), an influential organization in Los Angeles, is smearing the film — whose executive producers include Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Jonathan Glazer — as “propaganda” and “manipulation,” casting doubts on the circumstances that led to her killing by Israeli soldiers.
The war crime made international news: On Jan. 29, 2024, 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family sought to escape the violence surrounding them in Gaza – only to be met with the very thing they were fleeing from. The Israeli military brutally killed several of her family members as they attempted to flee. Then her cousin. Hind was then left alone for hours, pleading with emergency workers on the phone to help her. After agonizing hours, paramedics finally got approval from the Israeli government to rescue her.
Then the Israeli military killed Hind and the paramedics – who were found dead just hundreds of meters from her.
This sequence of events is documented in painstaking detail in ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab.’ Final voting for the Oscars ends Thursday evening.
‘Propaganda’
According to its website, the CCFP was founded in 2012 by David Renzer, the former chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing, and Steve Schnur, who is the president of music at Electronic Arts (EA) and the former chairman of the Grammy Foundation. The group describes itself as an “apolitical” organization that’s made up of “prominent members of the entertainment community,” and says it “strives to provide balance to the discourse regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.”
The CCFP counts professionals from Warner Bros., Sony, Atlantic Records, Amazon, and more as members of its advisory board and networking committee. Its annual gala has been sponsored by a wide range of companies and individuals, including the foundations of Len Blavatnik, a Russian oligarch, and Casey Wasserman, chairman of the Los Angeles organizing committee for the 2028 Olympics – both of whom are featured in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
CCFP’s campaign against ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ has involved communications with voting members, and campaigning efforts online.
“An Oscar-worthy film should tell the full story. ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ presents a one-sided and misrepresented account of a Palestinian child’s tragic death,” the group complains online. “Her life deserves dignity, and the truth of how she died matters,” it continues. “By omitting critical context, the film turns tragedy into political propaganda. That is unacceptable, and it should not be rewarded as serious, responsible filmmaking.”
The “critical context” the organization claims the film leaves out is that Hind “was not a target,” but rather simply “caught in the crossfire of an active war.”
“Omitting this context misrepresents the event and manipulates a tragedy for political purposes,” the group argues. It says that the film does not “meaningfully address” issues, including its claims that “her death occurred in an active combat zone,” that Israel had issued evacuation warnings to civilians, and that Hamas and Israel were fighting in the area, and says it fails to note the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 that precipitated the Israeli genocide.
But Hind, a 5-year-old girl, had nothing to do with Hamas or its attack. And she and her family were killed while evacuating.
The CCFP did not respond to Zeteo’s request for comment.
What the film supposedly “ignores” is only part of the group’s complaints. “The film strongly implies that Hind was deliberately killed by Israeli forces,” the group says. “Yet, Hamas fighters were active in the area, the car was driving the wrong way in an area under evacuation, the vehicle she was traveling in had blacked-out windows, the audio & WhatsApp transcripts contain omissions & discrepancies.”
“There is no evidence that Israeli forces intentionally targeted or killed this child,” the group claims.
There were 335 bullet holes in the car Hind was in. Her own piercing voice, depicted in the film, recounts tanks rolling around her after they had killed her family members, leaving her alone with their corpses as she begged for help on the phone.
“The deaths of children in war are tragic. But the claim that Israeli soldiers deliberately target children is demonstrably false – a modern blood libel,” the CCFP charges, adding: “The narrative fuels disinformation and the broader ‘genocide’ lie, which is the intention of the film,” the group charges.
Israeli forces have killed at least 21,500 children – a number feared to be much higher – in Palestine since Oct. 7.
Organizations worldwide have dubbed Israel’s genocide as such, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, a United Nations body of inquiry, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
It’s been 765 days since Israeli forces murdered Hind Rajab, her family members, and the paramedics sent to save her. There’s been no accountability for her killing – or the 21,000 children just like her who have been killed by the Israeli military.
Targeting Human Rights Advocates
Despite framing itself as balanced, the CCFP – which was apparently hatched by its founders during a breakfast at a hotel in Tel Aviv – is anything but.
The CCFP is registered as a trade name for an organization called StandWithUs, according to Los Angeles County records.
StandWithUs has worked with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including to dismiss the reality that Israel occupies the West Bank; targeted pro-Palestine students; sued universities and gotten them to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel; and encouraged supporters to buy Caterpillar stock amid scrutiny over the construction company’s role in Israel’s illegal and violent demolition of Palestinian homes.
The CCFP has attacked other films depicting Palestinian history and suffering, including the Oscar-winning documentary ‘No Other Land’ (whose crewmate filmed himself being killed by an Israeli settler shortly after winning), and ‘Palestine 36.’
The organization has also targeted celebrities who advocate for Palestinian human rights; organized trips to Israel; and combated allegations that Israel is starving Palestinian children or committing genocide. The CCFP has attacked a long list of celebrities, including: Mark Ruffalo, Huda Kattan, Cynthia Nixon, Hannah Einbinder, Kehlani, Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and nationally beloved childhood educator Ms. Rachel (including for platforming the well-known Gaza photojournalist Motaz Azaiza), among others.
The CCFP seems to demand no daylight between the Israeli government’s claims and celebrities’ stances. While thanking Bono for condemning Hamas and calling for the release of Israeli hostages, the group slammed him for citing Israel’s use of starvation of Gaza as a weapon.
The organization attacked Ariana Grande for simply sharing a post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemning Trump’s previous bombing of Iran – not long after it touted one of its advisory board member’s work as an agent for Grande, noting he helped secure her role in ‘Wicked.’
It also attacked Cynthia Nixon’s Jewish son, who, inspired by his Holocaust-surviving grandparents, participated in a hunger strike to protest the starvation of Gaza. “Starving yourself to support Hamas-run Gaza isn’t activism, it’s ignorance,” the group said.
The CCFP also runs “high-level trips to Israel for entertainment industry leaders” and offers services to industry agents and artists to navigate performing in Israel and batting away accusations against a nation internationally accused of genocide.
Other CCFP activities include working “behind the scenes” to ensure Eurovision wouldn’t ban Israel; attempting to “debunk” the fact that Israel maintains apartheid of Palestine or that there has been famine in Gaza; and celebrating Lebron James’s message about wanting to go to Israel.
Attempts to tarnish ‘No Other Land’ by pro-Israel groups, including the CCFP, failed, as it won the Oscar last year for best documentary. And, despite their efforts, entertainment workers and artists are only growing more outspoken in their calls for human rights and equality.
The boycott against Israeli film institutions implicated in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people has soared to over 5,500 signatories – including such prominent figures as Joaquin Phoenix, Emma D’Arcy, Brian Cox, Olivia Cooke, and Yorgos Lanthimos.
Despite its best efforts, the CCFP will be hard-pressed to silence ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab.’
Prem Thakker is a Zeteo Political Correspondent & Columnist
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