Hollywood superagent and outspoken commentator Ari Emanuel this week called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down, blasting him for failing to seek a peaceful solution to the war in Gaza following the horrific Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on the Jewish state.
“Israel will never be truly safe as long as Bibi Netanyahu is in charge,” the CEO of Endeavor Group Holdings said while accepting the award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Wednesday.
“In Israel’s interest, he should go,” Emanuel added.
The shocking remarks drew both applause and boos from attendees at the Beverly Hills gala, some of whom walked out as Emanuel accepted the Jewish organization’s highest honor, a humanitarian award. The New York Times.
“Netanyahu does not want a peaceful solution,” Emanuel said. “It is clear that a political solution and Netanyahu staying in power are mutually exclusive.”
“He has clearly failed spectacularly when it comes to his responsibility to keep the people of Israel and Jews around the world safe,” he said, “but he has been very successful in exploiting divisions to stay in power.”
The audience at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel included other entertainment titans such as Larry David, Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Los Angeles Times report.
Emanuel, considered one of Hollywood’s most outspoken executives, called on companies to cut ties with rapper Kanye West after he made anti-Semitic remarks.
Emanuel, who played a key role in the merger of WWE and UFC last year into the TKO Group, is the brother of Rahm Emanuel, who served as mayor of Chicago and chief of staff to President Barack Obama and is now ambassador to Japan for the Biden administration, and whose Michigan home was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti in November.
In 2006, Ari Emanuel wrote an open letter calling for the film industry to boycott Lethal Weapon actor Mel Gibson after Gibson made an anti-Semitic rant during a drunk driving arrest, but a year later Emanuel accepted Gibson’s apology and supported his return to the film industry.
Emanuel fired Gibson from William Morris Endeavor Entertainment four years after he was accused of assaulting a former girlfriend, and the two have since reportedly reconciled, likely through the mediation of Wahlberg, who became close with Gibson after working together on the show.
