Recent occurrences in Palestine have taken over social media and known celebrities like Dua Lipa and the Hadid sisters have faced censorship and backlash for being vocal about the Palestinian cause on their platforms.
These celebrities among others have been receiving attacks and have been labeled as antisemitic not only by media consumers but also by networks such as The World Value Network. This Network, funded by private donations, emphasizes the benefits of Judaism in tackling some of America’s domestic challenges, including “divorce, teen alienation, depression, and growing ignorance and materialism.” In contrast to the national and religious objectives of the organization, their homepage displays a black-and-white ad paid to appear on a page of The New York Times, reading:
Hamas Calls for a Second Holocaust
Condemn Them Now
Above the bold headline, which draws on the tragedies of the Holocaust to bring attention to Hamas, are three of pop culture’s biggest names at present; from left to right, Gigi Hadid, Dua Lipa, and Bella Hadid are looking mischievously at a photo of rockets struck by, presumably, Hamas. The ad was immediately criticized on social media as users shamed the media publication for allowing such an image to go to press without considering the harmful impact it would have on these women’s personal and professional lives. Some users were unsurprised, reminding the public of previous ads paid for by Donald Trump to demand the death penalty for the Central Park Five. Dua Lipa was the only one to respond to the ad’s allegations that her ‘revile’ of Zionists and Israel is simply a guise for antisemitism.
“This is the price you pay for defending Palestinian human rights [...] The World Values Network are shamelessly using my name to advance their ugly campaign with falsehoods and blatant misrepresentations of who I am and what I stand for.”
The ad itself offers no value to the conversations being had on social media, conversations which have brought the longstanding plights of Palestinians to the forefront of mainstream politics in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. It uses daring vocabulary to reinforce the idea that the escalating criticisms of Israel are intrinsically anti-Semitic -a serious accusation repeatedly used to derail or invalidate those who have spoken up against incessant Israeli violence.
For many, the unfolding of such a PR disaster is a tale as old as time. Public protests demanding Israeli accountability for perpetuating human rights abuses have long been repressed by the international media; one only has to read about the firing of Associated Press journalist Emily Wilder, whose “clear bias toward one side and against another” added fuel to the fire ignited by consumers of media and its gatekeepers. Objectivity, the ideal standard of truth, so often comes into the foyer when subjective thought threatens the status quo. Regardless, the campaign to #SaveSheikhJarrah was successful in its reach due to the dedication of Palestinian youth actives both on the ground and in the diaspora, the Hadids included.
Rumours of Dior’s suspension of Bella’s contract and whispers that Gigi’s address had been leaked circled social media for days as both sisters abruptly halted their regular posts about the situation in Palestine. These rumors are not conspiracies borne out of boredom and an inclination to online trolling-they are borne out of precedence. Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN presenter, had his contract terminated due to a speech at the United Nations wherein he called for countries to boycott and divest from Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The activists who called for pop singer Lorde to cancel her Tel Aviv show were fined by three teenagers for “encouraging a boycott of the country”-a legal action made possible under an Israeli law passed in 2011. The Canary Mission is an organization that monitors and documents university students and professors in the United States who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses” -- their lists include the individual’s public social media profiles. If there was ever doubt in Foucault’s panopticon, the philosopher’s referral to a building wherein the entire institution can be watched by one security guard, merely existing within the fictional, then the Palestinian activists and whistle-blowers immediately discredit this.
As of late, Mark Ruffalo apologized for his tweet calling for the end of a ‘genocide’ in Israel: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify antisemitism here and abroad.” The semantics of Ruffalo’s original tweet can-and should-be challenged with the nuances of discussion typically reserved for academic literature and theory as some users questioned whether the term, which added shock value to Israel’s actions, was the correct one to use. Given the restricted vocabulary within international law and crimes against humanity that is palatable for a mainstream audience, genocide is the term that aligns itself closely to the experiences of Palestinians since the creation of Israel in 1948.
However, boiling Ruffalo’s tweet down to semantics and theory does just what firing Marc Lamont Hill and photoshopping the faces of Bella, Gigi, and Dua on a NYT ad does: it derails the conversation by allowing the policing of language and empty back-and-forth to muffle out Palestinian cries for liberation and international support.