The Hadids, Hamas, and Hypocrisy

By The Editors

Sister celebrities Bella and Gigi Hadid took a break yesterday from modeling and cat-walking down the runway to share unwarranted, ill-informed political twaddle on the internet. Amid the chaos and unrest of a rapidly escalating armed conflict boiling over in the Middle East, the duo jumped on social media to condemn and delegitimize the State of Israel. Gigi Hadid made the following bogus claim:

"One cannot advocate for racial equality, LGBT & Women's Rights, condemn corrupt & abusive regimes, and other injustices yet choose to ignore the Palestinian oppression. It does not add up," she wrote on Instagram.

Gigi is entitled to her own opinion, but in this case, she's wrong. Moreover, she's using her platform to broadcast a blatantly false and hypocritical narrative to 66.2 million people. Her message is antagonistic and does absolutely nothing to solve the problem or promote understanding and peace between the two sides of this conflict. It's nothing more than an inappropriate and untrue attempt at virtue signaling.

Better yet, Gigi could not have picked two worse criteria on which to virtue signal. Israel has a longstanding record of uplifting women and the LGBT community. On the contrary, many Arab nations still criminalize homosexuality and treat women as second-class citizens. 

Hamas- The Palestinian Leadership in Gaza

Ten. That's the number of Arab states in the Middle East that still outlaw homosexuality, including the Palestinian Gaza Strip where the terrorist organization Hamas currently reigns, according to Human Rights Watch.

Section 152 of the Gaza Penal Code makes consensual same-sex sexual activity punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment, according to Amnesty International. Hamas takes accusations of homosexuality very seriously, executing one of their own commanders over allegations that he engaged in sexual relations with another man. The regime is known to patrol chat rooms and websites frequented by gay men to expose and punish them. 

There are no "Love is Love" rainbow murals painted on the walls of Gaza. The Palestinian government in Gaza doesn't value its own citizens, let alone the LGBTQ movement, using them as disposable pawns in its mission to destroy the Jewish State, explicitly stated in its founding charter. 

Rather than promote social justice and attend to public needs, Hamas diverts much of its foreign funding into weapons development and military infrastructure to attack Israel. The military wing launches millions of dollars worth of rockets into Israel in the hopes of killing Israelis, while the suffering Palestinians remain neglected and disenfranchised. Despite the wealth flowing into Hamas's coffers from overseas sponsors, such as Iran and Hezbollah, the people of Gaza are destitute and living in squalor and dilapidation. The humanitarian aid that European countries send to Gaza just ends up bankrolling the Palestinian leadership's terrorist agenda at the expense of its own people. Hamas is too preoccupied with wiping Israel off the map to care about LGBTQ people. 

On the issue of gender equality, Palestinian settlements are no poster child of feminism.

19 women died in the West Bank and 18 in Gaza as a result of gender-based violence in 2020, according to the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counselling. Women and girls face discrimination in law and practice and cannot adequately protect themselves against sexual and other gender-based violence, including so-called honor killings. Denying Gaza women any autonomy, Hamas recently ruled that women need the approval of a male guardian to travel. The Gaza government often requires male permission for women to participate in society. 

Due to Palestine's blatant contempt for women's and LGBTQ rights, it is incomprehensible that Gigi Hadid, a woman of Palestinian descent herself, could make a statement so ignorant of reality. The vulnerable groups she claims to champion are targeted in Gaza and the West Bank, without a peep from her exposing the despotic actors perpetrating these crimes. 

While Gigi is empowered and makes millions by monetizing her body, the women of Gaza are punished for theirs.

Israel 

In contrast to its enemies in the Middle East, Israel is a beacon of freedom, equality, and opportunity. While homosexuality can warrant torture or even the death sentence in Gaza, it is celebrated in Israel. Every year since 1998, Tel Aviv hosts one of the largest week-long gay pride parades in the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. Tel Aviv was voted the world's "Best Gay City" by GayCities.com and "The Most Gay-Friendly City in the World" by Wow Travel. 

Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that truly empowers women. Gender equality has been essential to Israel's national strength since its early years. Elected in 1969, Israel's first female prime minister Golda Meir led the nascent Jewish state through countless existential crises. Eons ahead of even the United States, the Israeli military views women and men as equally valuable warriors in its fighting force. Due to ongoing Arab aggression directed at Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recruits all eligible men and women at the age of 18 to serve for two years. Within the IDF, many women hold essential roles and elect to serve in combat. The IDF Chief of Staff recently announced a plan to increase the number of female senior officers by 50%. Can Hamas say the same? Can the US even say the same? 

The Hadids' baseless rhetoric is detrimental to any progress that might assuage the crisis flaring up in the Middle East. By guilting followers into viewing Israel as the antagonizer and Palestine as a haven for marginalized groups, the Hadids are peddling misinformation and exacerbating tensions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Painting Palestine as a progressive utopia is not only false but is harmful to Israel, which actually practices the values it professes.

Israel wants nothing more than to coexist in harmony alongside its Arab neighbors. That has been the case since its founding in 1948. Hamas will stop at nothing to exterminate Israel and its inhabitants. With Hollywood harlequins spreading hateful and factually incorrect messages, the truth remains underground to millions of impressionable viewers. Israel promotes women's rights, equality for the LGBT community, and peace- not Palestine. It's time to acknowledge it.