Bella Hadid to defend the Palestinians made an extra effort and participated in a pro-Palestine protest in the New York City
World’s most successful model sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid have openly voiced their support for Palestine. Meanwhile, Bella Hadid to defend the Palestinians made an extra effort and participated in a pro-Palestine protest in New York City held last week. This move of Bella’s was welcomed by Palestinians but on the contrary, met with criticism from the Israelis.
The official Twitter account of Israel falsely accused the supermodel of advocating “for throwing Jews into the sea”. The accusation rose out of Bella chanting the slogan with the protesters, “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, which was found offensive to the Israelis and claimed that it was an expression supporting the elimination of Israel. However, there was no evidence of the model expressing any harm to the Jews, in any of the footage available online.
The recent 11-day aggression of Israel on Palestine, like no other conflicts in the world, gained maximum popularity and exploded on our social media and television screens. Throughout the Israeli aggression and Hamas retaliation, every day new images and videos flooded the internet. People from across the world came up and showed solidarity with the Palestinians, either by taking to the streets or voicing for the oppressed through social networking sites. The Palestinian flag was held up high all the way from New York City to the streets of Indonesia.
Amidst the disproportionate bombing of Palestinians, a number of international icons raised their voices for the Palestinian cause. And some, who were initially vocal, like Kendall Jenner and Paris Hilton hastily deleted their posts that offered solidarity with Palestinians. But the Hadid’s expression concerning Palestinians became quite a buzz.
Supermodel sisters of Palestinian descent, Bella and Gigi Hadid along with their father Mohamed Hadid, have regularly advocated against atrocities sanctioned by the Israeli state on the Palestinian people. They shared several infographics and statements from their personal end on their Instagram accounts.
According to one of Bella’s Instagram posts, where she spoke about her own family’s Palestinian heritage, where she captioned it as “I love my family, I love my Heritage, I love Palestine. I will stand strong to keep their hope for a better land in my heart. A better world for our people and the people around them. They can never erase our history. History is history!”
Hadids, with their celebrity influence along with millions of followers on Instagram, have managed to shed light on issues concerning Palestinians and others like Black Lives Matter, over the years. In the year 2017, Hadid sisters marched in New York City against Trump’s Muslim ban policy.
Mohammed Hadid, a real-estate developer and father of both supermodels, was born in Nazareth, Palestine in 1948. He asserts to be related to Daher Al Omer, Prince of Nazareth and the Sheikh of Galilee from his mother’s side. He has been very vocal about his feelings of compassion towards Palestinian’s suffering.
In the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian exodus, Mohammed’s family was too one of the victims of the illegal occupation and forced expulsions of Palestinians. In the year 2015, he officially stated that “we lost our home in Safed to a Jewish family that we sheltered”. It is indeed disheartening, things seem to have not changed since then, and the world still continues to witness Nakba every year.