Oliver Stone apologizes for ‘Jewish domination’ remarks

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone apologized for saying in an interview that the Jewish lobby control Washington’s foreign policy and that Hitler’s actions should be put “into context.”

In an interview with the Sunday Times of London published July 25, Stone also said “Jewish domination of the media” has prevented an honest discussion about the Holocaust.

“In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret,” Stone said in a statement released July 26, the day after his remarks were published in the British newspaper.

Oliver Stone backed off statements he made in an interview with a British newspaper. photo/ap/matt dunham

Steinberg said in a statement that Stone’s apology “was necessary, and we accept it.”

“But whether he acted out of sincerity or as a desperate response to the moral outcry at his comments is an open question,” he added. “He must be judged by his future words and deeds.”

During the interview with reporter Camilla Long, Stone said that Jews were dictating U.S. foreign policy and that Jewish lobbyists “are hard workers.”

“They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington,” he said, adding that “Israel has f–ed up United States foreign policy for years.”

 “Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry,” Stone said in his apology statement. “The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity — and it was an atrocity.”

After the Anti-Defamation League called the apology “insufficient,” Stone spoke directly with ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, saying, “I do agree that it was wrong of me to say that Israel or the pro-Israel lobby is to blame for America’s flawed foreign policy. Of course that’s not true and I apologize that my inappropriately glib remark has played into that negative stereotype.”

Foxman welcomed the apology, saying that “I believe he now understands the issues and where he was wrong.”

In an earlier statement, Foxman said Stone “has once again shown his conspiratorial colors” and “is willing to propound his anti-Semitic and conspiratorial views.”

Stone, who has a Jewish father, is the winner of three Academy Awards, including as best director for “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” He also directed “Wall Street,” “JFK” and “Nixon.”

On Hitler, Stone said the German leader “did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 million. Hitler was a Frankenstein, but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein — German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support.”

The American Jewish Committee strongly condemned the filmmaker’s comments. “By invoking this grotesque, toxic stereotype, Oliver Stone has outed himself as an anti-Semite,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “For all of Stone’s progressive pretensions, his remark is no different from one of the drunken, Jew-hating rants of his fellow Hollywood celebrity, Mel Gibson.”

Israel’s public diplomacy minister, Yuli Edelstein, also criticized Stone’s remarks.

“They are nauseating, anti-Semitic and racist,” the Jerusalem Post quoted Edelstein as saying. “Not only is he showing ignorance, he is demonizing Jews for no reason and returning to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’

“When a man of Stone’s stature speaks in this way, it can bring waves of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment, and may even damage Jewish communities and individuals.”