Oscar-winning actor and outspoken pro-Israel conservative Jon Voight said in an interview published Tuesday that his daughter, Angelina Jolie, had backed the Palestinians because she was “influenced by antisemitic people.”
The interview, by Variety, said:
Today, Voight doesn’t resemble any of the troubled men tortured by circumstances he’s played in his six-decade career, including would-be hustler Joe Buck in “Midnight Cowboy,” paralyzed Vietnam vet Luke Martin in “Coming Home,” and Ed Gentry, a suburban everyman turned avenging killer in ”Deliverance.” Today, he’s all loopy grandpa, which is a role he plays for his six grandchildren now that he has reconciled with his once-estranged daughter, Angelina Jolie.
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No one is spared Voight’s seething right-wing political opinions, including his daughter, who he feels has fallen victim to antisemitic subterfuge. (“Angelina wishes him well but does not speak about him publicly,” said a source close to the actress.) He says her politics are, to put it mildly, not his, while his are the subject of an endless circular conversation — especially now that Trump is on the upswing. The actor is a staunch supporter of Israel, most recently its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, and Jolie is a longtime refugee activist, currently decrying Israel’s killing of women and children in Gaza [sic]. In our conversations, Voight never lets it go, criticizing her Palestinian stance repeatedly, like a candidate going after an opponent in a 30-second ad. “She has been exposed to propaganda,” he says. “She’s been influenced by antisemitic people. Angie has a connection to the U.N., and she’s enjoyed speaking out for refugees. But these people are not refugees.”
Israel is not deliberately killing women and children in Gaza; it tries to avoid civilian casualties — unlike Hamas, which hides among Palestinian civilians while targeting Israeli civilians.
Voight’s statement that the Palestinian residents of Gaza are “not refugees” refers to the fact that most were resettled there 75 years ago; many were born and raised there and are not “refugees” in the way that term is used for other conflicts.
In October, Jolie released a statement on the Hamas terror attack and the subsequent war: “What happened in Israel is an act of terror. But that cannot justify the innocent lives lost in bombing a civilian population in Gaza that has nowhere to go, no access to food or water, no possibility of evacuation, and not even the basic human right to cross a border to seek refuge.”
Palestinians have been provided with large shipments of aid; they have “nowhere to go” because neighboring Arab states refuse to take them in.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
