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Of course “Palestine” had to be mentioned at the Oscars. Such political virtue-signaling is by now de rigueur. But I am pleased to report that this year it was kept to an absolute minimum. Of the close to one hundred people who appeared on the stage to announce or receive an award, exactly one mentioned “Palestine.” At precisely 10:03 p.m., Javier Bardem, who was on stage to announce the winner in the category of “international film,” said, as his opening line, “No To War and Free Palestine.” This unremarkable remark was followed by a very brief applause, lasting considerably less than a minute and to my ear, muted rather than full-throated, which Variety misleadingly describes thus: Bardem “earned a big round of applause from the audience at the March 15 awards show.” That’s not what I heard, and I was listening very intently.
No one else mentioned “Palestine” or “From the River to the Sea” or “genocide” or wore a lapel pin, as Bardem did, showing an outline of “Palestine from the river to the sea.” But what should have been spoken about — Iran’s war on its own people, and the killing of 36,500 protesters in January — was also not mentioned, not even once. A great pity, as one billion people are claimed to watch the Oscars, including people in Iran and all over the Middle East, and those Iranians would have welcomed some sign of sympathy for the Iranians, and outrage at the regime in Tehran that has made their lives miserable for 47 years.
Javier Bardem’s “Free Palestine” should have been expected. At the 2025 Emmys, his neck swathed in a vast keffiyeh, Bardem was being interviewed on the red carpet where he shouted “Free Palestine!” and announced “Here I am today, denouncing the genocide in Gaza.” It is clear that Bardem has no idea that “genocide” has been carefully defined by international lawyers. It requires “intent.” The IDF does not “intend” to kill civilians. It has every intent to avoid civilian casualties. That is why it makes tremendous efforts to warn civilians in Gaza away from sites, and buildings, about to be targeted. To this end, after the first six months of the war in Gaza, the IDF had already dropped millions of leaflets, sent millions of text messages, and made millions of robocalls, all to warn civilians to leave specified areas (of course, at the same time the IDF was also warning Hamas combatants about places soon to be struck, but that was a cost Israel was prepared to pay to ensure the safety of civilians.). Given this history, it is hardly surprising that West Point Professor John Spencer, an expert on urban warfare, has noted that “Israel has done more and implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in the history of urban warfare.” It’s too bad that Bardem hasn’t bothered to find out why Professor Spencer, along with other students of warfare, have come to that conclusion.
In his same interview in 2025 on the red carpet at the Emmys, Bardem declared his own private boycott on behalf of Hamas and against Israel. “I can’t work,” he proclaimed, with any film or TV company that “justifies or supports the genocide.” “Here I am today, denouncing the genocide in Gaza.”
Bardem’s anti-Israel animus has been a constant theme of his pronouncements for more than a decade. In February 2026, Javier Bardem signed an open letter denouncing Israel’s actions during its conflict with the terror group Hamas, describing them as “genocide” (the word comes so often, and so trippingly, from his tongue whenever he mentions the Jewish state). In September 2024, Bardem criticized Israel for its military operations in the Gaza Strip, characterizing them as “genocide.” He denounced the “unconditional support” of Israel by the United States, the U.K., and Germany. In May 2025, Bardem signed a collective letter criticizing the film industry’s “passivity” in the face of what letter described as “the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” In June 2025, Bardem appeared on a television talk show, The View, where he again insisted that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza with the “back-up of the United States” and the “silence of Europe.” None of the hosts of the program asked him how he would define “genocide.”
In September 2025, Bardem also signed a letter circulated by a group, Film Workers For Palestine, pledging to observe a boycott of the Jewish state. He won’t work with any group that “justifies genocide” — meaning any individual or group or company that does not denounce Israel. In 2026, he co-signed a text with other self-described Spanish “artists,” calling on the United Nations and the governments of the world to actively work for the release from prison of Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti is no innocent; he is serving five life sentences after being convicted on five counts of murder: authorizing and organizing the murder of a Greek Orthodox priest, Georgios Tsibouktzakis, planning a shooting near the West Bank settlement of Giv’at Ze’evin in which a civilian was killed, and planning and directing the attack on the Seafood Market in Tel Aviv, in which three civilians were killed. In addition, Barghouti was convicted of attempted murder for a failed car bomb attack near Malha Mall that exploded prematurely, and for membership and activity in a terrorist organization. This is the man, responsible for five murders, whom Javier Bardem thinks should be freed.
Given that long uninterrupted record of anti-Israel statements, including his oft-repeated charge of genocide that he flings repeatedly at the Jewish state, why did those who organize the Oscars choose Javier Bardem to announce an award at the 2026 Oscars, when it was certain he would again call for “Free Palestine,” thus injecting a highly tendentious and distracting topic into the evening’s proceedings? Who in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thought having Javier Bardem appear to make his never-ending plea for “Palestine” was a good idea?
