Famed actor John Cusack has joined the chorus of voices criticising Disturbed singer David Draiman for signing an Israeli Defence Force (IDF) artillery shell last year.

On Tuesday (October 21), Cusack – star of Sixteen Candles, Stand By Me, High Fidelity and other Hollywood films – took to X (formerly Twitter) and quote-tweeted a photo of Draiman writing “Fuck Hamas” on a projectile.

Cusack writes in his post, “Anyone who signs a bomb is pyycotic [sic]”

Later that day, Draiman posted a reply, defending his actions and accusing Cusack of standing up for Hamas: the Palestinian nationalist terrorist group that the singer calls a “genocidal, Jew-hating death cult”.

“Hello @johncusack, my old friend,” Draiman writes. “It isn’t psychotic to defend oneself from a genocidal death cult, hell bent on slaughtering you.

“What’s psychotic, is you defending that genocidal, Jew hating death cult, the way you have for years. You want psychotic? Look in the mirror.”

Draiman shared the photo of him signing the IDF shell via Instagram in June 2024, and since then he’s been the subject of widespread backlash. In July 2025, at Ozzy Osbourne’s retirement concert Back To The Beginning, the singer was booed by members of the audience.

Multiple outlets connected the reaction to Draiman’s ongoing support of Israel; he proceeded to double down on his stance, calling those who booed him “a few Jew-hating morons” and saying he was “still unapologetically a fiercely pro-Israel Jew”.

The controversy escalated further this month, when a date on Disturbed’s ongoing European tour was cancelled by the mayor of Vorst, Belgium. Charles Spapens explained that he pulled the plug on the band’s planned October 15 show in Brussels as it had become a security risk. Earlier that week, activist groups had announced plans to protest outside the gig.

Draiman attempted to ease tempers during Disturbed’s October 14 show in Amsterdam. Standing alongside his bandmates, he gave a speech telling fans that “Disturbed are all about unity”.

“The conflicts that are going on in this world don’t define us,” he said, “because in this building, there is no fucking conflict. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Chinese or Taiwanese. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Indian or Pakistani, it doesn’t matter whether you are Israeli or Palestinian. Everyone is welcome in our house every fucking time we take the stage.”

Among Draiman’s defenders is Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows. In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this week, Shadows said, “I really respect David, not just for where he stands, but that he believes in something and he’s full-force into it.”

Conflict between Israel and Palestine has existed for decades, but it escalated after the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Between that attack and September 2025, more than 64,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to The Guardian. The UN Human Rights Council has called Israel’s actions in the region genocide, although Israel has denied having genocidal intent.

A ceasefire went into effect on October 10 this year, and all 20 remaining living Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas. However, a Gaza medical office claims that Israel has already violated the ceasefire agreement 47 times and killed 38 Palestinians.

In 2019, Cusack put a post on X that he claimed was a condemnation of “Israeli policy” but was criticised for being anti-semitic. The post, which contained a picture of the Star Of David, featured the words, “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The quote is often misattributed to Voltaire but is actually based on the words of American Neo-Nazi Kevin Alfred Strom.

Cusack deleted the post amidst backlash and wrote in a follow-up statement, “antisemitism has no place in any rational political dialoge [sic]”

Disturbed’s European tour continues on Friday (October 24) at the AO Arena in Manchester, UK.