Key Takeaways:
- Mark Ruffalo has backed a campaign calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah figure serving five life sentences after being convicted of murder for his role in terrorist attacks.
- Paramount accused Ruffalo of invoking antisemitic tropes after he attacked the company’s incoming Jewish leadership.
- The latest controversies fit a longstanding pattern of troubling rhetoric from the Hollywood actor
For years, actor Mark Ruffalo has portrayed heroes on the big screen, most notably playing Bruce Banner/the Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet away from Hollywood productions, the actor has increasingly used his global platform to wade into complex geopolitical and corporate controversies, frequently relying on inflammatory rhetoric and double standards.
In the past week, Ruffalo has made headlines for two distinct controversies related to the Jewish people: lending his celebrity status to an international campaign demanding the release of a convicted terrorist, and hurling sharp accusations involving antisemitic tropes against the incoming Jewish leadership of Paramount.
Supporting a Supervillain
Ruffalo joined more than 20 Marvel-affiliated actors and others in backing an international campaign urging Israel to release Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah figure imprisoned in Israel since 2002. The “Freedom for Marwan” campaign, launched by Barghouti’s family with support from British civil society groups, has gathered over 200 signatures from cultural figures worldwide, including actors, musicians, writers and directors.
Among the Marvel names are Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Daniel Brühl, Rebecca Hall, Zawe Ashton, Tatiana Maslany, May Calamawy, Emma Corrin and Kingsley Ben-Adir. Their statement expresses “grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment and denial of legal rights whilst imprisoned,” and calls on the UN and governments “to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison.”
But as HonestReporting has detailed before, Barghouti is no “Nelson Mandela.” He is an unrepentant convicted murderer and terror mastermind who – following the October 7 atrocities – released a message that called on the Palestinians in the West Bank to join the “resistance” against Israel and specifically called on members of the Palestinian security services to turn their weapons against Israel.
Dear @marvel actors, your hero Marwan Barghouti is no symbol of freedom – he is a convicted murderer and terror mastermind who called for escalation against Israel after October 7.
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 23, 2026
Stop romanticizing a real-life supervillain.https://t.co/Wz85vUbtIBhttps://t.co/7hAx8C0cmq pic.twitter.com/feVCDK6zwE
Ruffalo’s support of a convicted terrorist takes on an even more sinister tone when viewed with his other misstep of the past week – not to mention his history of comments regarding Jews and the conflict.
Of Paramount Offense
Ruffalo has been one of the most visible critics of the planned $111 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery deal, arguing it concentrates too much media power in the hands of a single family – the Ellisons – and threatens editorial independence and jobs. In an Instagram story last week, he accused Paramount moguls David and Larry Ellison of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world,” through the Ellison-owned Oracle tech company, highlighting a 2023 clip of Paramount board member Safra Catz discussing Oracle technologies used by the Israeli military after October 7. He referred to Larry Ellison as a “classic Oligarch” and warned that the merger would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions “has never been fully explained to the public.”
Paramount was unimpressed.
“We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” a company spokesperson said, adding that applying terms such as “genocide” and “apartheid” to a corporate transaction was “a bridge too far.”
Ruffalo subsequently denied the accusation.
The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue…
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) August 22, 2026
“The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” he wrote, arguing that criticizing Israel, military technology contracts, or the Ellisons was not equivalent to criticizing Jews.
He also invoked his personal relationships with Jews:
“Everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life.”
But Paramount’s objection was not that criticism of an individual Jew is automatically antisemitic. The issue was the antisemitic dog whistle Ruffalo chose to use while attacking a Jewish family acquiring an extraordinarily influential media empire – framing them as immensely wealthy oligarchs whose money and technology supposedly power malevolent forces.
As for his comments about his Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones, they are in stark contrast to what he claimed last month:
Mark Ruffalo says he’s done talking to Jewish actors.
— Haim gozali (@HAIM__GOZALI) July 21, 2026
Hey Mark, if that’s really how you feel, maybe you should stop playing the Hulk too.
After all, the character was created by two Jewish legends, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Or is that different because it works in your favor?… pic.twitter.com/LAafgLODmE
A History of Troubling Comments
For the actor who has spent years playing Bruce Banner, Mark Ruffalo has increasingly let the Hulk out when it comes to disturbing comments about Jews and the Jewish state.
For instance, during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, he refused to believe the Hamas terrorist organization would be depraved enough to use their own people as human shields:
@LaneShari1 Do you honestly think these people, these fellow human beings, would use their own children as shields? Use your heart.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 21, 2014
He followed this up by shilling for them the following year:
Wow. It Turns Out Hamas Didn’t Kidnap and Kill the 3 Israeli Teens After All http://t.co/WpqHckSErT via @intelligencer
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 26, 2014
And when Hamas’ evil was on display for all the world on October 7, he essentially blamed Israel for the massacre:
as well as the murder by Hamas of the six Jewish hostages, including U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin:
And his latest comments regarding the Ellisons are not even the first time he has crossed into antisemitic trope territory:
Between their spyware, election tampering, disinformation campaigns, state sanctioned killing of journalists, apartheid, & their new ultra right wing nationalist party, there are power centers in Isreal that are antidemocratic & dangerous to world peace. https://t.co/aH67JbaZAa
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) February 15, 2023
So it is no surprise he opposes the IHRA working definition of antisemitism:
“Alon Confino, a Pen Tishkach chair of Holocaust Studies & professor of history & Jewish studies at UMass Amherst, warned that if the UN adopts the IHRA definition, ‘the damage will be exponentially bigger to human rights, but also the UN itself.’”https://t.co/iQW0EN5TC1
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) November 4, 2022
The Hulk Unleashed
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Bruce Banner eventually figured out how to keep the Hulk under control, harnessing his strength for the greater good. But for Mark Ruffalo, the transformation is complete: the green monster of unhinged, obsessive anti-Israel animus has taken over permanently.
Whether he’s lending star power to campaigns that whitewash mass murderers or rehashing tired, conspiratorial tropes about Jewish wealth and control, Ruffalo has fully embraced his role as Hollywood’s premier agitprop activist.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
