The supermodel fronted the latest collaboration between the fashion giants only two weeks after they dropped the rapper over his antisemitism.
By Debbie Reiss, World Israel News
Less than two weeks after Balenciaga and Adidas dropped Kanye West over his antisemitic tirades, the luxuryand sportswear giants have chosen American-Palestinian model Bella Hadid, who has also been accused of antisemitism, to front its next collaboration.
The partnership marks the second time the brands have come together since debuting on a runway at the New York Stock Exchange last May.
On October 21, Balenciaga announced it was severing ties with West over his antisemitic remarks, which included calling for the death of the Jewish people. Days later, after an extended silence for which the company came under heavy criticism, Adidas also dropped West.
The news that Hadid would be the face of the collection, which mixes oversized jerseys with luxury handbags, has prompted outrage among anti-hate activists.
Arsen Ostrovsky, human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum, a global network of lawyers which led a campaign calling on Adidas to drop Kanye, said the decision to hire Hadid was “the height of hypocrisy.”
“They have simply just replaced one antisemite for another, only underscoring it was never about values or tackling racial hatred for these brands, but only about profits,” Ostrovsky told World Israel News.
“The fact that Kanye’s antisemitism was directed at Jews as individuals, while Hadid relentlessly vilifies Israel and supports Palestinian terror, should make no difference. Hatred is hatred is hatred, and we need to call it out regardless, as well as all those who enable it and profit from it,” he added.
Hadid, the daughter of Palestinian-American real estate tycoon Mohamed Hadid, is vocally anti-Israel, describing it as an “apartheid” state and charging Israeli Jews with being a “a group of colonizers” who conduct ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
In August, the supermodel claimed she had lost friends and job opportunities over her support of the Palestinians.
“There have been so many brands that have stopped working with me. A lot of friends have also turned their backs on me,” the supermodel told Libyan-American journalist Noor Tagouri,on his podcast.
A month earlier, Hadid posted a series of Instagram posts to her 56 million followers lamenting the deaths of Gaza-based terrorists during an escalation between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.
Hadid also shared an Instagram story by her cousin Lina that suggested Israel was occupying land that had been Palestinian for “4,000 years,” and on a separate occasion, claimed that “Jesus was a Palestinian.”
Social media activist Ysabella Hazan also decried the decision to have Hadid front the campaign.
“I didn’t think it was possible to be gaslighted by a company but mazal tov to @adidas for doing it by replacing ye with another antisemite Bella Hadid, this time normalizing a different brand of antisemitism that is just as dangerous,” she said.
West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, who expressed her support for Jewish people during the height of her ex-husband’s rants, has been spotted wearing designs from the Balenciaga-Adidas collaboration.