Let’s not make the Paramount/Warner merger fight into a proxy for Israel-Palestine

In recent months, actor Mark Ruffalo has been an outspoken advocate against the Paramount/Warner merger and for the Palestinians. Last week, he linked the two.

Last week, Ruffalo shared a post from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, featuring an old clip of Oracle executive and Paramount Skydance board member Safra Catz talking about Oracle giving Israel access to certain “really profoundly scary technologies,” following the October 7 attacks. Oracle was founded by Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount head David Ellison, who would head the combined company if the merger goes through.

Here’s what Ruffalo said in the Instagram story, per Variety:

This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition.

These “really profoundly scary technologies” will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.

This led to a multiple-day back and forth, in which Paramount, in an official statement, accused Ruffalo of invoking “antisemitic tropes,” something strongly denied by the actor. Then, the head of something called the National Jewish Advocacy Center went on to accuse California Attorney General Rob Bonta of doing Ruffalo’s bidding.

Based on all of that… I’m really starting to not like where this is going.

I’m against the merger. I think Hollywood needs less consolidation, not more, and I’d really prefer CNN not end up in the incompetent little fingers of Bari Weiss.