A number of celebrities were spotted wearing red pins at Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony to support Palestinians, drawing the ire of multiple social media users.
The pins, featuring a black heart inside of a red hand, were worn to support the group Artists4Ceasefire, which consists of multiple celebrities and advocates against the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. The celebrities spotted wearing the pins included Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell, Ramy Youssef, Mahershala Ali, and Mark Ruffalo, among others.
“The pin symbolizes collective support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza,” the group said in a statement.
Many social media users slammed the celebrities who chose to wear these pins, with some claiming that the symbol on the pin is associated with the 2000 Ramallah lynching of Israelis. The incident occurred in October 2000 when two reservists for the Israel Defense Forces, Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami, were lynched by a Palestinian mob in the city of Ramallah.
“Most celebrities wearing red pins don’t know that the image of red hands is associated with one horrific event imprinted on the minds of Israelis and Palestinians,” the state of Israel’s X account posted. “The 2000 Ramallah lynching of Israelis. This symbolism isn’t a coincidence.”
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This year’s Oscars show was the first one held since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with the film The Zone of Interest winning best international film at the ceremony. In his acceptance speech for the award, The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer used the opportunity to discuss the war in Gaza and to speak out against Israel.
“Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of Oct. 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization,” Glazer said. “How do we resist?”