Let my people go? Some say yes, some say no

The war over Israel’s image continues to play out in Los Angeles media. 

A StandWithUs (SWU) advertisement that appears in the March 11-18 edition of the Hollywood Reporter reads, “Isn’t it Time to Go to Israel?” Its publication comes on the heels of a Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) ad that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 24, calling Israel an apartheid state and encouraging Academy Award nominees, who’d been offered a free trip to Israel as part of a gift bag prior to this past Sunday’s Academy Awards, to “#SKIPTHETRIP.”

“We wanted to make sure the message is, ‘People need to go and see for themselves and visit Israel,’ ” SWU CEO Roz Rothstein said in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s the single-most powerful way to formulate their opinions about Israel, to go visit the country. They’re saying ‘skip the trip’ and all that stuff, calling Israel names, and we’re encouraging people to take the trip, go to Israel, and experience the over 3,000-year-old Jewish connection in just one visit.”

The full-page, pro-Israel SWU advertisement appears on page 83 of THR’s ninth issue of the year, currently on newsstands, according to a SWU spokesperson. The cover story of the issue, which features coverage of the Oscars, is “Hollywood’s 100 Favorite Movie Lines.” 

SWU works to galvanize support for Israel among college students, high school students and others. It condemns the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, among other things. JVP, meanwhile, supports the BDS movement.