David and Larry Ellison have bought Paramount and are now waiting for regulators to sign off on their plan to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
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Lots of people have objected to Paramount's planned purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.Some of those people are antisemitic, says Paramount's top lawyer.In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Makan Delrahim, Paramount's chief legal officer, said that some opposition to the Paramount/WBD deal is coming from people with "antisemitic views.""Let's be honest," he told the Times. "There's a lot of fear-mongering, particularly from people in Washington, D.C. They are running a political campaign. Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction, really because of their own antisemitic views. Regulators and law enforcement officials will see right through that."What does Delrahim mean by that?Paramount declined to comment. I've also asked Delrahim to expand on his remarks. In the absence of an explanation, the only plausible answer I can think of is that Paramount owners Larry and David Ellison are active supporters of Israel, and Delrahim is suggesting that some people who are critical of the Ellisons' pro-Israel stance are also antisemitic.This isn't the first time the issue of Israel has come up since the Ellisons bought Paramount: Last fall, Paramount denounced a campaign, signed by some high-profile actors and filmmakers, not to work with some Israeli film organizations. Paramount said the campaign amounted to "silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality."
