Abcarian: Is is right that Americans are fired for taking sides in war?

Should Americans be punished or lose their livelihoods for things they say about a gut-wrenching conflict taking place halfway across the world? In an ideal world where freedom of speech is absolute, short of advocating violence, no one should get fired for stating an unpopular view.

But we don’t live in that world, as some professionals with strong points of view and the irresistible urge to share them on social media are finding out.

One day after the heinous Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team tweeted out a message of support for Israel: “We stand with the people of Israel and join them in mourning the hundreds of innocent lives lost to terrorism at the hands of Hamas.”

Jackson Frank, a young sports reporter who had been hired in September to cover the 76ers for PhillyVoice, took exception. “This post sucks!” Frank quote-tweeted. “Solidarity with Palestine always.”

He was fired the next day.

In Los Angeles, Tara Strong, 50, a successful voice-over artist, was fired from the animated series “Boxtown” because, the producers said, she promoted “controversial messages regarding the peoples of Palestine currently being affected by the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis.” Strong says she was “fired for being Jewish.”

Creative Artists Agency superagent Maha Dakhil, 48, who represents Tom Cruise, Madonna, Natalie Portman, Anne Hathaway and Reese Witherspoon, stepped down from her leadership roles after she was deluged with criticism for reposting an Instagram story from the account Free Palestine. “You’re currently learning who supports genocide,” said the post, to which Dakhil added, “That’s the line for me.”

It goes without saying that these three careers would be entirely intact if not for social media’s tendency to encourage heat over light. What constitutes acceptable speech in a fraught moment like this is entirely subjective. But if you anger your bosses, if you embarrass them or bring disrepute to the organization for which you work, you may get fired — or maybe not.

Take for example what recently transpired at the New York Times.

The newspaper was the most prominent of several news outlets that fueled widespread protests in the Arab world after reporting — apparently wrongly — that an Israeli rocket had fallen on a Gaza hospital. Days later, the Times defended its decision to rehire a Palestinian freelancer in Gaza. Photojournalist Soliman Hijjy had been let go last year after his antisemitic 2012 Facebook post was highlighted by a pro-Israel media watchdog group.

Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans, always ready to take a match to the U.S. Constitution, are calling for crackdowns on the free speech of pro-Palestinian college students. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered state universities to ban Students for Justice in Palestine, a decades-old group with chapters on college campuses across the country, alleging that it supports terrorism.

Listen, I’m sure we all feel like a pingpong match is being played inside our heads and hearts over what’s happening in Israel and Gaza.

The carnage and terror visited on Israeli civilians and the taking of hostages by Hamas is a monstrous crime that no amount of historical context justifies. The estimated 220 people still held as hostages by Hamas must be released.

And while the retaliation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip by the Israel Defense Forces may be understandable on a gut level, its execution is morally indefensible. Not because Israel does not have the right to destroy Hamas — it does — but because the killing and suffering of thousands of Palestinian civilians, about half of whom are children, is also an affront to humanity.

Reasonable, compassionate human beings can hold both of these thoughts. If you feel the need to say otherwise, just know that — fairly or unfairly — you could end up paying a price.

Robin Abcarian is an opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times.