Does George R.R. Martin Support Israel?

David Svetsky Feb 24, 2025 4 min read

Short answer: As of July 2026, George R R Martin has never personally issued any public statement supporting Israel, nor made a personal statement condemning it in his own words. The most concrete political trace runs the other way: his name appears on the signatory list of Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), an anti-Israel coalition that backs a cultural boycott and calls Israel's war a genocide, and Jewish outlets (Algemeiner, JFeed) attributed that listing to the Game of Thrones author. Martin himself has never publicly confirmed, explained, or disavowed the listing, and WAWOG's page does not document how signatures were collected or whether identities were verified, so the attribution rests on those outlets rather than on anything Martin has said. His only direct references to Gaza on his own blog treat it as one item on a list of global conflicts, taking no side.

What George R R Martin has actually said and done

1988: Martin's short story "The Journal of Xavier Desmond" appeared in Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad, imagining an alternate future in which a Palestinian terror attack destroys the Western Wall, Israel is split, and a jointly governed Jerusalem falls into unending street war. As The Forward and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency both noted, it is bleak fiction about the conflict, not a statement of support for any side.
January 8, 2019: On the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Martin learned he is 22.4 percent Ashkenazi Jewish, roughly one grandparent's worth, a surprise since he was raised believing he was Irish and Italian. His reaction, reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Jewish News: "You've uprooted my worldview."
October 26, 2023: Writers Against the War on Gaza published its founding Statement of Solidarity, which describes Israel's war as an attempt at genocide and aligns with a cultural boycott. The name "George R.R. Martin" appears on the group's public signatory list, a coalition also documented on Wikipedia. (More on why that attribution needs care below.)
January 29, 2024: In his own "Dark Days" post on Not A Blog, Martin mentioned Gaza only in passing, listing it beside Ukraine and Myanmar as conflicts in the news. He took no position on Israel or the Palestinians, consistent with his lifelong reluctance to editorialize on the conflict directly.
July 5, 2024: Over the July 4 holiday, WAWOG posted an Al Jazeera item about Hezbollah firing more than 200 missiles and drones at Israel, captioned "Happy 4th of July," widely read as celebrating the attack. Coverage by the Algemeiner and JFeed named Martin among the coalition's listed writers, again without any personal comment from him.

Jewish roots, dystopian fiction, and where the boycott talk comes from

Martin was raised in Bayonne, New Jersey, in a family he understood to be Irish and Italian, with a devout Catholic paternal grandmother. He is not a practicing Jew. The 2019 DNA reveal traced his Ashkenazi ancestry to a biological grandfather rather than the Italian grandfather he grew up believing in (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). So there is real Jewish ancestry, but no Jewish upbringing or religious practice.

His only substantive engagement with Israel is fictional. That 1988 Wild Cards story depicts a divided Jerusalem where coexistence has failed, a scenario later outlets called eerily prophetic. It is thematic and pessimistic about the conflict, not an endorsement of any side.

The boycott talk traces to one thing: the "George R.R. Martin" entry on the WAWOG signatory list, reported as the author by the Algemeiner and JFeed. Two cautions belong here. First, WAWOG's page does not document how signatures were collected or whether identities were verified, and Martin has never personally confirmed, discussed, or disavowed the listing, so the tie is journalistic attribution, not his own word. Second, a July 2025 headline about "George R.R. Martin comments" that surfaces in searches is not political at all: it covers his progress on The Winds of Winter, and it is a common source of confusion for people searching his name alongside Israel.

The bottom line

There is no evidence George R R Martin supports Israel, and nothing here should be read as manufacturing any. The record points the other way, but softly. His name sits on an anti-Israel, pro-boycott writers' statement, reported as his by Jewish outlets, yet never personally confirmed by him and drawn from a list whose collection and verification method is not documented. His only self-authored references to Gaza are neutral and passing, and his substantive Israel content is a bleak 1988 work of fiction. He has roughly 22 percent Ashkenazi ancestry, discovered in 2019, but no Jewish practice and no public pro-Israel stance. Net: not a supporter of Israel, with a lightly documented lean toward the pro-Palestinian side that he has never spoken about in his own voice.

Wear your own answer

When a public figure stays silent, your own stand still counts. If Martin's record leaves you wanting to say plainly where you stand, you can do it out loud with our Support Israel collection, from an I Stand With Israel tee to a simple I Stand With Israel bracelet you can wear every day. Every piece is designed in solidarity with Israel and its people, no ambiguity required.

Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.