Javier Bardem receives the Donostia award during the 72nd San Sebastian International Film Festival in San Sebastian, Spain, on September 20, 2024. Photo: OOLMedia via Reuters Connect
Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem gave a lengthy speech decrying Israel’s military actions against the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip during a press conference at the San Sebastián International Film Festival (SSIFF) in Spain on Friday.
The “Dune: Part Two” star attended the SSIFF to accept his 2023 Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award on Friday night after he was unable to attend the festival last year because of the SAG-AFTRA strike in Hollywood. When asked at a press conference on Friday about politics and Israel, he began by saying in Spanish: “What is happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable, is terrible, is dehumanizing. I believe that the government of Israel is the most radical government in the history of Israel.”
The “No Country for Old Men” actor then accused Israel of “committing crimes again humanity [and] crimes in international law.” He said the “terrible and condemnable” terrorist attacks orchestrated by Hamas-led terrorists on Oct. 7 in Israel “do not justify the global massive punishment that the Palestinian people is suffering.”
“The impunity that the current Israeli government enjoys in its actions in Gaza and the West Bank has to change,” he said. “I think that countries like the United States, Germany, and England especially have to reconsider their logic of behavior and unconditional support when we see human rights crimes against international law such as prohibiting [the entry of] food, water, medicine, and electricity. As UNICEF says, [it] is a war against children and continues this trauma for generations. [We] cannot be impassive against that.”
“We are seeing that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, in an attempt to avoid going to prison due to the corruption accusations and because of how he hijacked the judicial system in Israel, is taking this aggression to levels that are already starting to affect the entire Middle East,” he also told reporters at the press conference.
Bardem — who has two children with his wife, actress Penelope Cruz – said he knows nothing he says will change anything about the situation in the Middle East. However, he thinks society “is beginning to understand that it is legitimate to criticize any government and it has nothing to do with, in this case, the false accusation of antisemitism.”
He stated that the world has a “moral and ethical right to denounce that which we consider unjust.” He also claimed that the current Israeli government under the helm of Netanyahu is an “ultra-nationalist, extreme right-wing” government that is not representative of the entire Jewish community or Israeli society.
“It is our responsibility, you as the media and I as a citizen, to observe and denounce those situations that we consider unacceptable, and to ask the International Criminal Court, the international justice of the United Nations, to condemn and judge those responsible. In this case, Netanyahu and Hamas,” he said. “To give unconditional support is nothing more than to give wings to the abuse of international and human law.”
After his statement, Bardem was given a round of applause from the journalists attending the press conference, Deadline reported.
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