Dozens of envoys walked out as Netanyahu assailed allies who recognized Palestine
Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder were among those arrested by New York police on Thursday during a Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration in New York City that preceded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the United Nations General Assembly.
An NYPD spokesperson said officers responded to reports of an “unscheduled demonstration” where participants were blocking an intersection. “Members of the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau issued … warnings, advising participants that they should leave,” the spokesperson said. “They continued to block the intersection. Multiple individuals who didn’t comply were taken into custody,” the spokesperson added, without providing a total arrest count.
Agence France-Presse footage showed officers handcuffing Sarandon at the demonstration. The New York Post reported that Einbinder, a star of the HBO series Hacks, had also been marched away. Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier and New York City Council member Chi Ossé were among those arrested, according to The Guardian. Saturday Night Live cast member Sarah Sherman was also present at the demonstration.
Protesters held banners that read “Stop Arming Israel” and “End the Genocide.”
Sarandon, an Oscar winner whose film credits include Thelma & Louise, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dead Man Walking and The Witches of Eastwick, has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza. Speaking with journalists at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, she said she was losing work because of her views. “I’ve still had movies taken away recently because there are agencies that are telling people not to hire me still. But that’s the power structure,” she said. She added: “I think there has been a change in terms of the understanding of the situation and the general public, but there are still very strongly held positions within my industry that are held by Zionists and who have not relaxed their feelings towards me. But I found my family, I found my people, and I’m OK.”
Einbinder has framed her activism in similar terms. “I think what they know is what I know, which is that the cost of not speaking is higher,” she told the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, citing industry backlash to actors such as Sarandon and Melissa Barrera. “There is a greater toll in not speaking and you’ve just got to have your priorities straight. I am under no impression that my small career could ever measure up in comparison to even one human life. It’s an obligation and I will always do it.”
Inside the General Assembly hall, dozens of envoys from across the world walked out as Netanyahu began his speech. In remarks that assailed both enemies and allies, Netanyahu singled out Britain and France, which have recently moved to recognize a Palestinian state. “They accuse Israel, tiny Israel, of colonialism — some colonialism. And who’s accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God’s sakes, they invented the term,” he told the assembly.