The Palestinian Inquisition

‘Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide’, actor Adam Brody recently told GQ. ‘Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.’

Put me down. It’s the language of someone choosing dinner at a wedding. ‘Put me down for the sea bass.’ Here he’s choosing to accuse Israel of genocide. He offers no explanation or evidence for his choice. Just a position to record.

Brody may sincerely believe what he’s saying. But how freely does anyone speak in an industry where giving the wrong answer can become a public ordeal?

I work in Hollywood as a screenwriter and I am currently developing a series that takes place during the Spanish Inquisition. Spending time with that history makes certain contemporary rituals look unfortunately familiar. Someone makes an accusation, an inquisitor combs through your past and you issue a declaration. Then you’re either absolved or burnt at the stake, with the judgement delivered in public so everyone else knows what’s expected of them.

The Spanish Inquisition investigated heresy, with Jewish converts to Christianity among its central targets. Conversion did not end suspicion. You could enter the approved faith and still be accused of secretly retaining the old one. Even after converting, you still had to convince other people you meant it.

Being attacked online is obviously not the same as torture or execution. But watching someone else get punished can teach you what to say before anyone asks.

Consider Odessa A’zion. An old photo of her wearing an IDF t-shirt became grounds for investigating the actress’s politics. Her response: 'not a zio'. Even that failed to satisfy everyone. Some demanded more explanation. A teenage clothing choice had become evidence against her.

After her Emmy win last year, Hacks star Hannah Einbinder described it as her obligation as a Jew to distinguish Jewish identity from the State of Israel, home to around half of the Jews in the world. In a subsequent discussion, Einbinder expressed anger at her Hollywood peers who ‘cannot utter a single word’, dismissing the explanation that some didn’t feel informed enough about the Middle East conflict to speak out. Apparently, ‘I don’t know enough about this’ is no longer an acceptable answer. It’s just another crime you have to answer for.

Hasan Piker interviews politicians and other public figures and helps establish which answers are acceptable. Having likened liberal Zionists to 'liberal Nazis', he plays at being the grand inquisitor, the arbiter of correct beliefs. If any attachment to Israel puts you in the heretical category, what room is left for disagreement?

You don’t even have to be Jewish to find yourself before this tribunal. Ask Ed Sheeran. His crisis began when Macklemore was removed from Sheeran’s tour following pressure from venue owners over the rapper’s anti-Israel statements and history of anti-Semitic imagery.

Soon Sheeran’s own beliefs were on trial. A picture of him meeting a former Israeli hostage was enough to ‘prove’ he was irredeemable. And when he condemned the October 7 terrorist attacks while also calling the situation in Gaza catastrophic, this too was evidence against him. For some critics, acknowledging suffering on both sides was offensive. British MP Zarah Sultana accused him of ‘both-sidesing genocide’. Apparently, the problem with his compassion was extending it to all humans.

Saturday Night Live UK then turned his reluctance to take sides into a recurring joke. In one sketch, a fictional Sheeran remained unwilling to choose even during a conflict between humans and robots. The joke depended on the audience accepting that his neutrality was cowardice. When comedy writers can’t conceive of there legitimately being two sides to a two-sided conflict, that’s troublesome.

Sometimes you don’t even have to give any answer to become a victim of the inquisition. You just have to sit next to someone who gave the ‘wrong’ one. Pop singer Pink faced an immense backlash after criticising Macklemore’s concert remarks. Then Elizabeth Banks and Amy Adams were photographed sitting with her at the US Open. People began questioning them, too. In a Reddit discussion of the photographs, commenters condemned their friendliness toward Pink and flooded their Instagram accounts with hateful comments. Watching tennis with someone deemed ‘impure’ was enough to start the examination. The warning extends beyond what you’re allowed to say to who you’re allowed to be seen with.

You don’t even have to help anyone to pass the test. A person can donate to Palestinians privately and still fail if they don’t use the required language. Another person can make the proper declaration and be celebrated without being asked to do anything more. The words become the whole point.

The celebrity inquisition doesn’t need everyone to believe what they say. It only needs everyone to know what happens if they don’t say the right words.

‘Put me down for not getting burnt at the stake.’

Yoni Weinberg is a New York-based TV writer who has worked for HBO, TBS, and Peacock. He also writes a weekly Substack called 'Across the Yoniverse'.