UK Lawyers for Israel caution BBC, Netflix over boycott call

UK Lawyers for Israel have sent a legal warning to some of the UK's largest film and TV studios over an industry boycott of Israeli institutions, Variety has reported.

The legal warning claims that the boycott, which has been backed by major stars, including Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Coleman, and Emma Stone, is a breach of the UK's Equality Act. 

Recipients of the letter include British institutions like the BBC, Film4, and the BFI, as well as UK outposts of international studios such as Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery. The letter was also sent to agencies and unions in the industry.

The letter states, "[The Equality Act 2010] is the key legislation in the U.K. protecting against racism and discriminatory treatment. If the U.K. television and film industry colludes with acts contrary to this legislation, organisations are themselves likely to be in breach. It also creates a dangerous precedent: one that condones the exclusion of individuals and/or organisations based solely on their nationality, ethnicity, and/or religion.”

The UKLFI was founded in 2011 to push back against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

In August, the fundraising arm of the pro-Israel group was probed after a complaint that it threatened to take legal action against individuals for showing support for Palestine.

Complainants to the Charity Commission accused UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) of sending eight letters to individuals and organisations between January 2022 and May 2025.

These letters "demonstrate a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts", according to the complainants, lodged with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) by the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) and the European Legal Support Center.

They claimed the UKLFI uses "strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps), which are lawsuits intended to limit freedom of expression on matters of public interest".

The UK Charity Commission confirmed at the time it was probing the UKLFI Charitable Trust’s relationship with UK Lawyers for Israel, its parent organisation.

Over 1,500 actors and film industry workers agreed not to screen films, appear at, or work with Israeli film institutions that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against Palestinians, in an open letter published in September.

Signatories of the letter include British actors Aimee Lou Wood, Josh O'Connor and Tilda Swinton, American actors Ayo Edebiri and Cynthia Nixon, and filmmakers Ken Loach and Yorgos Lanthimos.

The letter, organised by the group Film Workers for Palestine, was inspired by similar action against apartheid South Africa.

The boycott excludes work by Palestinian Israelis, which UK Lawyers for Israel say amounts to "selective application — exempting some institutions based on the ethnicity or religion of their members," which "strongly indicates that [its] operation is based not only on nationality but also on religion and ethnicity."

The boycott targets institutions, rather than individuals. However, the Equality Act protects organisations as well as people.