Why Did Wallace Shawn Liken Israelis to Nazis?

In a video clip from a 2025 interview, actor and playwright Wallace Shawn delivered a hateful rant likening Israelis to Nazis, despite his grandfatherly appearance and soft voice. He claimed that Israelis had invaded territory, displaced people, and committed acts of cruelty reminiscent of those inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews.

Shawn argued that the Israelis' actions were even worse than the Nazis', as they proudly boasted about their atrocities, unlike Hitler, who tried to keep his crimes hidden. He further stated that the only party in this conflict to have committed genocide was Hamas, who recorded the brutal assault on Israel on October 7, 2023. The interview resurfaced at a time when accusations of "genocide" against Israel were at an all-time high.

Progressive voices, including Representative Ro Khanna, Senator Bernie Sanders, and the Young Democrats of America, have accused Israel of "the crime of crimes." Shawn, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization, attributes all violence to "Israeli apartheid and occupation—and United States complicity in that oppression."

The resurgence of Shawn's video comes amid the publication of an interview with actor Adam Brody, who described the situation in Gaza as a genocide. The claim of genocide is not meant to establish the facts but to heighten the stakes in the ongoing effort to delegitimize the Jewish state. Critics of Israel have been accusing it of genocide since its founding in 1948, but recently, the charge has been made only days into the military response to Hamas's attack.