Cynthia Nixon begins hunger strike to call for Gaza cease-fire

Publish date: 2024-05-07

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“Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon has joined a hunger strike demanding a permanent Israel-Hamas cease-fire, although she’s doing it Hollywood-style — two out of the five days.

Nixon, 57, joined five US politicians this week in the protest, demanding President Biden push for a permanent cease-fire as Israel battles back against Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Some of the pols are also doing different abbreviated periods over the time frame.

“None of this is normal. None of this is routine, and none of this can be allowed to continue,” Nixon said at a press conference outside the White House on Monday, referring to the estimated 14,300 Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to Time.

Nixon — who is reprising her iconic role as Miranda Hobbes on the “Sex and the City” spinoff “And Just Like That…” — was previously among more than 260 artists who signed an open letter calling for Biden and Congress to demand a cease-fire, the outlet said.

Actress Cynthia Nixon joined a hunger strike this week calling for a cease-fire. Getty Images

The flame-haired former New York gubernatorial candidate will take part in the five-day hunger strike for two days before she returns to New York for work commitments, she said Monday.

One online critic tweeted, “Cynthia Nixon begins HUNGER STRIKE to trigger Israel-Hamas peace – WAIT – for only TWO DAYS! Sounds more like celebrity virtue-fasting to me.”

Dov Hikind, former Brooklyn assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, seethed to The Post, “I hope she doesn’t eat for a very long time.

“It’s so pathetic,” he said of Nixon’s comments. “Hamas, the butcher of Jews. … She wants to give the butchers, the barbarians, a victory with a cease-fire. That’s exactly what they want.

“Cynthia Nixon is playing right into their hands. She’s a hypocrite.”

An estimated 14,300 people – including over 6,000 children – have been killed in Gaza. ZUMAPRESS.com

Nixon told reporters Monday, “We are here hunger-striking just to sort of mirror to Biden the kind of deprivation that is happening in Gaza and how he has it within his power to make a cease-fire happen,” according to the Times of Israel.

She noted that she is the mother of two Jewish children whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors, SkyNews said.

“I have been asked by my son to use any voice I have to affirm as loudly as possible that ‘Never again’ means never again for everyone,” she explained.

“In seven weeks, Israel has killed more civilians on a tiny strip of land than was killed in 20 years of war in the entire country of Afghanistan.

“I am sick and tired of people explaining away by saying that civilian casualties are a routine toll of war. There is nothing routine about these figures. There is nothing routine about these deaths,” she lamented.

Nixon shares two sons with her ex-husband, Danny Mozes, who is Jewish.

Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel

As of 2018, Nixon and her wife, Christine Marinoni, attended Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ synagogue, the Forward wrote at the time.

“I would like to make a personal plea to a president who has, himself, experienced such devastating personal loss, to connect with that empathy for which he is so well known and to look at the children of Gaza and imagine that they were his children,” the actress insisted on Monday.

Nixon is joining five politicians who are spearheading the hunger strike. Getty Images

Later, in a separate interview with the Guardian, Nixon slammed Biden for moving “way too slow” to save Palestinian lives.

“Let’s say there was a terrorist cell in Maryland. Would the response be to then completely bomb the civilian population because they’re hiding in a house somewhere?” she said, referring to the Israeli military’s retaliatory bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which officials say is a legitimate effort to decimate Hamas terrorists.

Stay on top of news out of the Israel-Hamas war and the global surge in antisemitism with The Post’s Israel War Update, delivered right to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

“It doesn’t make any sense. We just keep getting this message that Palestinian lives are of less value. Immediately when you substitute British lives or American lives or any other nationality, you immediately see that’s crazy, how could we ever?” Nixon continued.

Five politicians — Madinah Wilson-Anton of Delaware, Zohran Mamdani of New York, Mauree Turner of Oklahoma, Sam Rasoul of Virginia and Abraham Aiyash of Michigan — are also participating in the hunger strike, Time reported. Mamdani and Wilson-Anton are doing the full five days, as are about six other unnamed participants, according to TIME

Nixon pointed out that she has two Jewish children. Getty Images

The core group is joined by activists and faith leaders from several communities, the outlet noted.

Wilson-Anton said she hopes the strike will “bring attention to the fact that the US government, our president, and our congressional leaders are funding this policy of starvation [in the Gaza Strip].”

“We send American taxpayer money to bomb communities in Gaza and I don’t think our president is using his leverage to the extent that he could to bring about a permanent cease-fire,” she said, according to Time. 

“We’re seeing the impact of that, which is no food, no water.” 

Nixon and several other activists announced the hunger strike in front of the White House on Monday. Getty Images

The protest was organized and endorsed by Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the Adalah Justice Project, Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Dream Defenders, Democratic Socialists of America, Institute for Middle East Understanding and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Guardian reported.

The hunger strike was timed in part to coincide with the initial four-day cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel — which saw the terror group release at least 51 of the hostages it has been holding in Gaza since Oct. 7.

In exchange, Israel has returned 117 of the 150 Palestinian prisoners it said it would free as part of the deal, SkyNews explained.

On Monday, officials announced that the cease-fire would be extended for two additional days.

–Additional reporting by Carl Campanile

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