HOLLYWOOD, CA – DECEMBER 08: Writer/director Angelina Jolie (L) and actorJon Voight arrive at the premiere of FilmDistrict’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey” held at ArcLight Cinemas on December 8, 2011 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Even without their political differences, Angelina Jolie had understandable reasons for keeping her father Jon Voight at a distance for much of her life. The Academy Award-winning actor had cheated on her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, and left her to raise Jolie and her brother on her own.
But in recent years, Jolie, 48, and Voight, 84, reportedly reconciled. She told Vanity Fair in 2017 that he helped her after her bitter, high-profile split from Brad Pitt. She said he had been “very good at understanding” that her six children needed their grandfather and that he was happy to play the “cool grandpa,” telling them stories and reading books to them.
This famously fraught daughter/father relationship is back in the spotlight after Voight came out pretty strongly against Jolie over their different views on the Israel-Hamas war. He recorded a video on Instagram over the weekend, saying he was “very disappointed” that she spoke in defense of Palestinians instead of Israelis.
“I am very disappointed that my daughter, like so many, has no understanding of God’s honor, God’s truths,” the conservative actor said on his Instagram video.
“This is about destroying the history of God’s land, the Holy Land, the Land of the Jews,” Voight continued. “This is justice for God’s children of the Holy Land.”
It’s arguable that Jolie has more experience than her father on international conflicts and their impacts on civilians. For more than 20 years, the “Maleficent” star served as a special envoy for the UN High Commission for Refugees. In an initial post from Oct. 28, Jolie called for a ceasefire of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, saying her focus always is on “the people displaced by violence in any context.”
Jolie said she was “sick and angry” about Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, during which 1,400 people were killed in their homes, at a music festival and on the streets, and during which more than 240 hostages were taken. But in this post and in a subsequent one on Nov. 1, she said this act of terror doesn’t give Israel the justification to kill innocent civilians, largely through airstrikes, which have thus far killed some 10,000 people in Gaza. She said Gaza “has been an open-air prison for nearly two decades and is fast becoming a mass grave.”
“Palestinian civilians — children, women, families — are being collectively punished and dehumanized, all while being deprived food, medicine and humanitarian aid against international law,” Jolie continued.
Voight responded to his daughter’s posts by saying he regarded anyone who doesn’t support Israel “a fool” or worse. “You fools call Israel the problem, you should look at yourself and ask who am I?” Voight said.
Voight was joined in his criticism of Jolie by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who ripped the actor for “not offering the Israeli people any ability to defend themselves,” the Daily Mail reported. In an interview with Piers Morgan, Herzog said he “totally rejects” Jolie’s criticisms of the offensive in Gaza, noting how she’s never been to Palestine or Israel.
Voight called on his daughter to reassess her opinion on Israel’s role in the war, saying, “Hamas and this deceit of their ruling is destroying their own people.”
It’s hard to say whether Voight’s public criticism of his daughter will further damage their relationship because it’s not known whether they had been in each other’s lives in recent years. Reports say they reconciled in 2010, with the help of Pitt, and Jolie indicated to Vanity Fair that she and her father were on good terms in 2017. But the Daily Mail said she had once again severed contact following her divorce from Pitt.
Voight held liberal views when roles in “Midnight Cowboy,” “Deliverance” and “Coming Home” in the 1960s and 1970s catapulted him to Hollywood fame. But he subsequently renounced those views and became a staunch Republican. In recent years, he has become best known for his hard-right politics, particularly his support for Donald Trump. He also questioned the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
If the Israel-Hamas war has caused another rupture in Jolie’s relationship with her father, she wouldn’t be the only person this has happened to. The Washington Post and other outlets have reported that the bloodshed and bombings in the Israel-Hamas war have caused damage to many friendships and family bonds — among fellow Jews and Palestinians even among people with no particular connection to the Middle East.
After Americans have lived for years with painful polarization over red state/blue state, Donald Trump or COVID masks and vaccine mandates, they now find themselves “falling into surprisingly deep fissures” over the conflict in Israel and Gaza, with people finding it treacherous to have conversations about the war, in person or on social media, the Post said.
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