Anti-Israel protesters in Los Angeles, California, US, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Daniel Cole

More than 5,000 leaders and public figures across entertainment, academia, politics, and several other fields signed an open letter on Wednesday that rejects the accusation that Israel is committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.

The public figures say they are “outraged and sickened” by the false claim about a “genocide.” They argue that the accusation has “distorted and amplified” Israeli actions in Gaza, and “downplayed” the Hamas-led massacre that took place on Oct. 7. 2023 in southern Israel.

“A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent. In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas,” reads the open letter, published by Creative Community for Peace (CCFP). “The unprecedented combat conditions of the war – hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, thousands of boobytrapped homes – the conflating of combatants with ‘journalists’ and ‘human rights workers,’ the ratio of civilian-to-terrorist casualties, considered low for asymmetrical urban warfare, the absence of mass starvation despite repeated claims of imminent catastrophe, the warnings given to civilians before attack: All these factors were erased in the eagerness to indict Israel for genocide.”

The open letter also notes that the accusation about a “genocide” in Gaza “has become a pretext for excluding, attacking, and even murdering Jews around the world.”

“Its purpose is to delegitimize Jewish self-determination and to turn the only Jewish state into the world’s arch criminal and pariah,” the letter states. “We urge our fellow Jews and our non-Jewish friends to treat the accusation of genocide with revulsion – as the latest in a long history of lies about the Jewish people.”

CCFP executive director Ari Angel added that the “incendiary” accusation “helps create an atmosphere in which Jews are increasingly shunned, harassed and attacked under the banner of anti-Israel activism.”

“Criticism of Israel and its government is entirely legitimate. Falsely branding the Jewish state as genocidal carries consequences, and Jews around the world are living with them,” he further noted.

The open letter was signed by notable names in entertainment, academia, literature, government, business, religion and civic life. They include former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing and former Paramount Global Chair Shari Redstone; Sharon Osbourne; producers Lawrence Bender and Susan Rovner; actors Debra Messing, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Edwards, Mayim Bialik, Rebecca De Mornay, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Dame Maureen Lipman, Patricia Heaton and Jerry O’Connell; “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner; and “Gilmore Girls” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.

Former Atlantic Music Group CEO Julie Greenwald, record producer Bob Ezrin, musician John Ondrasik, Disturbed frontman David Draiman, and songwriter and producer Billy Mann are among those in the music industry who signed the letter.

The political, diplomatic, and public policy leaders who joined the open letter include former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson; Deborah E. Lipstadt, the former US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Irwin Cotler; Selina Robinson, former British Columbia minister of finance; former US Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie; former senior US diplomat Elliott Abrams; and former White House Council of Economic Advisers chair Jason Furman. They were joined by notable scholars, historians, professors, rabbis, and more.

“The genocide libel is a case study in the longstanding – and intensified post-October 7th – historical, moral, legal and normative inversions of fact, law and history,” said Cotler.

The letter also mentions the definition of the word “genocide” and how it has been misused and “changed to apply to the Gaza war.” Under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide requires “specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” The Convention lists five actions that can be considered genocide, and they include acts that would cause serious physical or mental harm to the group and actions relating to the ability to have children, which could threaten the group’s future existence.

CCFP’s open letter argues that applying the term “genocide” to Israel ignores the true definition of the crime. The letter also acknowledges the legitimate debate over Israel’s military actions during its war against Hamas terrorists controlling Gaza, and notes the innocent people killed in the war.

“There is a vigorous debate within the Jewish community over aspects of how this war was fought, and that is a sign of moral health. So is our pain over every innocent life lost. But we must unite in repudiating the lie of genocide,” the letter states.

Lipstadt said in a released statement: “Those who accuse Israel of genocide, a very specific crime with a legally specific definition, are fulfilling the dictum attributed to the Nazi propagandist, Josef Goebbels. ‘If you tell a lie and keep repeating it enough, people will eventually come to believe it.’ By October 10th, accusations of genocide were common, even before Israel set foot in Gaza. Then it was extremist voices who made this charge. Now, people have come to believe the lie and to mindlessly repeat it.”