Oscar winner Susan Sarandon among over 100 people arrested in New York for protest against Israeli PM
Movie star Susan Sarandon and Hacks actor Hannah Einbinder were among a reported 100 people detained by police in New York City on Thursday as they broke up a protest against the Israeli prime minister.
AFP footage showed NYPD officers leading away cuffed Thelma & Louise star Sarandon at the demonstration in the city as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was readying to address the United Nations General Assembly.
The New York Post reported Einbinder had also been frog-marched from the demonstration organised by Jewish Voice for Peace, where protesters held banners that read “Stop Arming Israel” and “End the Genocide”.
A spokesperson for the NYPD said officers had responded to reports of an “unscheduled demonstration” where people were blocking an intersection.
“Members of the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau issued… warnings, advising participants that they should leave,” the spokesperson said.
“They continued to block the intersection. Multiple individuals who didn’t comply were taken into custody,” she said, without providing the number of people arrested.
Jewish Voice for Peace said on social media that over 100 people had been arrested.
“Over 400 people held a mass sit-in outside the UN demanding an end to the genocide and an end to US military funding to Israel,” the organisation said on X.
“We refuse to stand by while war criminals are given a platform to speak and while our government spends billions on war.”
Einbinder issued a statement after her arrest outlining what she was trying to bring attention to.
“If the pictures of my friends and me getting arrested in protest of Netanyahu’s shameful visit to New York draw attention to anything, let it be to the devastating genocidal war Israel is waging against people of Palestine and Southern Lebanon — to the settler attacks, the home demolitions, the bombing of people as they sleep; to the crimes that happen every single day but garner almost no international press coverage,” the actor wrote on her Instagram Story on Thursday.

“The US government has the power to bring an end to all of this killing, pillaging, and land theft, yet instead it chooses to welcome the butcher of Gaza with open arms.”
Einbinder asked people not to “mistake the spectacle for the story” and focus on Israel’s actions in Palestine rather than the people arrested for protesting about them.
Inside the General Assembly, dozens of envoys from across the world walked out as Netanyahu began his speech, in which he assailed both enemies and allies that have crossed him in recent months, including Britain and France, which have recently moved to recognise the state of Palestine.
“They accuse Israel, tiny Israel, of colonialism — some colonialism. And who’s accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God’s sakes, they invented the term,” he told the assembly.
Sarandon, whose movie hits also include The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dead Man Walking and The Witches of Eastwick, is no stranger to protests over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The actor told journalists at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month that she was losing work because of her outspoken views.
“I’ve still had movies taken away recently because there are agencies that are telling people not to hire me still. But that’s the power structure,” she said.
“I think there has been a change in terms of the understanding of the situation and the general public, but there are still very strongly held positions within my industry that are held by Zionists and who have not relaxed their feelings towards me.
“But I found my family, I found my people, and I’m okay,” she added.











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