In the wake of the decision by 12 state attorneys general to block the merger, opponents claimed they were defending democracy against “billionaires and authoritarians.”

But a week ago, actor Mark Ruffalo let the mask slip, weaving a complicated and conspiratorial narrative about why he opposed the merger because of Israel. Ruffalo boosted a post from the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, slamming Oracle Executive Vice Chairwoman Safra Catz, who spoke openly about the company’s assistance to Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. BDS captioned the clip by accusing Oracle of being “complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity — including apartheid and genocide against Palestinians.”

Ruffalo reshared the post to his Instagram story, taking aim at Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose son David Ellison is working on the acquisition of Paramount Global through Skydance Media. Ruffalo argued that Larry Ellison is using Oracle “to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition.” 

“These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you,” Ruffalo wrote. “Look how [Catz] revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

Writing for the California Post, attorney Mark Goldfeder explained Ruffalo’s argument succinctly: “Jewish money, in service of Israel, is supposedly buying up the media and will one day turn their tools on you.”

Ruffalo’s statements received immediate condemnation, with prominent Jewish voices condemning the actor for promoting age-old antisemitic tropes. Noa Tishby, the former special envoy for Combating Antisemitism, explained, “Sometimes antisemitism is like water to a fish. These are subconscious biases against Jews. The belief that Jews are just too powerful, that they have these mythological superpowers. Controlling the media, manipulating governments, starting wars, wielding endless money.”

Notably, the defenders rushing to Ruffalo’s defense were none other than famed Jane Fonda, nicknamed Hanoi Jane, and John Cusack, who famously shared neo-Nazi memes on social media.

Paramount itself hit back too, issuing a lengthy statement against the actor’s use of antisemitic tropes, explaining, “This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction.”

While many prominent Jews were rightly horrified at Ruffalo’s statements, others have remained conspicuously silent.

In the California Post, Goldfeder outlined the challenges facing the lawsuit against the merger, “In February, when Ruffalo demanded action against the merger, the [California] attorney general answered him publicly, from his official X account, by name: ‘Mark, I hear you. I’m in conversation with my AG colleagues about Paramount/Warner Bros. As the epicenter of the entertainment industry, California has a special interest in protecting competition.’”

In May, the New York Times reported that California Attorney General Rob Bonta “met at a semiprivate session arranged by Norm Eisen’s Democracy Defenders Fund, where Ruffalo pressed him to sue. In July, he sued. Ruffalo is the case’s celebrity face, recruited by the attorney general personally.”

California led the coalition of a dozen states, joined by Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington, in the lawsuit filed in July.

That chronology now creates a problem for every attorney general who joined Bonta’s case. But it creates a particularly uncomfortable one for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who has spent years insisting that public officials have an obligation to recognize and confront antisemitism.

Weiser has been particularly enthusiastic about the case and celebrated, announcing, “This is a huge win for everyone who enjoys movies or television. I’m proud of my attorney general colleagues in our coalition for being bold and stepping up to enforce the antitrust laws when the Department of Justice wouldn’t.”

That statement came before Ruffalo said the quiet part out loud.

Now Weiser and everyone else know that Ruffalo is not merely worried about ticket prices, cable licensing, or the concentration of movie studios. Ruffalo has publicly spun a story in which Larry Ellison’s money, Catz’s support for Israel, Oracle’s technology, and David Ellison’s media ambitions have combined into a conspiracy involving the concentration of Jewish power that could someday be turned against Americans.

And that leaves Weiser with a question he should have to answer: Does he still feel “proud” of this coalition and the political campaign surrounding its lawsuit now that one of its most visible advocates has told the public what he believes this merger actually represents?

The problem for Weiser is that he has spent years demanding moral clarity about antisemitism, and now he’s on the hook for delivering some of his own.

Weiser is Jewish. His mother was born in the Buchenwald concentration camp and was liberated the following day by American troops. He has spoken publicly about his decision to live openly and proudly as a Jew and about the obligation to confront antisemitism rather than excuse it. Last year, delivering remarks at Colorado’s Babi Yar memorial, Weiser said that responding to rising antisemitism requires “refusing to rationalize or minimize hate” and “naming it without hesitation.”

A century ago, the accusation was that Jews controlled banks, newspapers, and governments. Today, Ruffalo has updated the narrative for the technological age and added a few twists: Jewish billionaires, Jewish executives, Israel, artificial intelligence, and a media empire supposedly converging into a frightening apparatus of control.

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Weiser is yet another Jewish Democrat rendered incapable of decrying antisemitism when it comes from their own side. The “moral clarity” he had in the wake of an antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado, has vanished because the man spreading it happens to be useful to an antitrust case he supports. The situation is so dire among Jewish Democrats that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently told the Detroit News, “It is perhaps up to us now … to sacrifice the comfort, safety and security and even the future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.”

For months, opponents of this merger have insisted their campaign is about preserving competition and protecting American culture. Ruffalo has now revealed that, for at least some of its most prominent champions, something much uglier is at work. The attorneys general who welcomed his advocacy don’t have to abandon their antitrust arguments because of what Ruffalo said, but they do have to decide whether they will condemn the antisemitism coming from their own side.