Hacks star and comedian Hannah Einbinder picked up a Primetime Emmy Award on Sunday (Sept. 14), and during her acceptance speech, she spoke out for the people of Palestine and the victims of aggressive ICE raids across the country.
Einbinder won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in Hacks, and she first took a moment to thank the creators of the show for changing her life. But when it was time for her to leave the stage, Einbeinder had one last message to the audience. "Finally, go birds, fuck ICE, and free Palestine," she said. "Thank you."
In an interview backstage, Einbeinder was joined by her Hacks co-star and fellow Emmy winner Jean Smart and was asked about why she said "free Palestine" during her acceptance speech.
“I thought it was important to talk about Palestine,” she said, per Deadline. “Because it’s an issue that’s very dear to my heart. I have friends in Gaza who are working as frontline workers, as doctors right now in the north of Gaza, to provide care for pregnant women and for school children to create schools in the refugee camps. And it’s an issue that’s really close to my heart for many reasons. ... I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel, because our religion and our culture is such an important and long-standing institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state."
Before the Emmys on Sunday, Einbinder was among 4,500 people in the film and TV industries to sign a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions over Israel's military actions in Gaza, which have claimed the lives of over 64,000 Palestinians. She said backstage at the Emmys that she was "happy to be a part of" the pledge, which she said doesn't boycott individuals but "institutions that are directly complicit in the genocide."
Celebrities who have also signed the pledge include Emma Stone, Ayo Edebiri, Mark Ruffalo, Ava DuVernay, Aimee Lou Wood, Alyssa Milano, Cynthia Nixon, Ilana Glazer, Brian Cox, and Susan Sarandon.
"We answer the call of Palestinian filmmakers, who have urged the international film industry to refuse silence, racism, and dehumanization, as well as to 'do everything humanly possible' to end complicity in their oppression," the pledge reads. "As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions. In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror."
Other artists who spoke out for Palestine at the Emmy Awards included Javier Bardem, who walked the red carpet wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh. He also highlighted that the International Association of Genocide Scholars said that Israel's military actions in Gaza have reached the legal definition of genocide, as reported by The Guardian.
The association passed a three-page resolution that has called on the country to "immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks against and killing of civilians including children; starvation; deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other items essential to the survival of the population; sexual and reproductive violence; and forced displacement of the population."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, meanwhile, has deported nearly 200,000 people within the first seven months of President Donald Trump's administration, as reported by CNN late last month.