Adidas Drops 1972 Olympic Shoe Relaunch Featuring Bella Hadid After Campaign Branded ‘Antisemitic’

Adidas apologized for placing a Palestinian-American model, Bella Hadid, who has a long history of antisemitic comments, as the face of its campaign to relaunch a shoe first introduced ahead of the 1972 Olympics — during which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. “We are conscious that connections have been made to tragic historical events — though these are completely unintentional — and we apologize for any upset or distress caused,” a representative for the German shoe company told the Washington Times on Thursday. They also announced that they will be revising the remainder of the campaign. “We believe in sport as a unifying force around the world and will continue our efforts to champion diversity and equality in everything we do,” they added. The shoe campaign, released earlier this week, was met with outrage by members of the Jewish community and even caught the eyes of Israel’s foreign ministry. “She and her father frequently promote blood libels and antisemitic conspiracies against Jews,” the official account for the State of Israel, run by Israel’s foreign ministry, wrote about Ms. Hadid on X.Adidas’s apology comes after multiple Jewish advocacy groups called for the German sneaker company to drop the campaign. “For Adidas to choose Hadid, someone who is constantly baiting Jews and attacking the Jewish state, is bad enough, but to have her launch a shoe commemorating an Olympics where so much Jewish blood was shed is just sick,” said the head of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, Sacha Roytman, in a statement. “We call on Adidas to apologize for this decision and drop Hadid immediately. Otherwise, it will be seen as a direct attack on the memory of the eleven Israelis who were murdered while merely trying to participate in the Olympic Games,” he added. Israeli writer and prominent pro-Israel social media influencer Hen Mazzig chimed in. “This is not a mistake, it’s by design. A Palestinian model, notorious for spreading blood libel and vile hate speech against Jews, is now referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Palestinian terrorists slaughtered Israeli athletes,” he wrote in a post on X. “@Adidas, are you threatening Jews?” he added. During the 1972 Olympic games eight Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic village, killing two members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage immediately and taking nine others hostage. The assailants — operating under the terrorist organization Black September — ended up murdering six Israeli coaches, five Israeli athletes, and one German police officer. The model at the center of the controversy, Ms. Hadid, is half-Dutch and half-Palestinian and has been an outspoken supporter of Palestinians since before the onset of the war. She has also, however, been accused of “fanning the flames of antisemitism” by spreading misinformation about Israel to her some 61 million followers on Instagram — a figure nearly four times the number of Jews in the world. Back in November, Ms. Hadid came under fire for circulating the false claim that “Israel is the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war” even while Hamas held some 200 Israelis captive, including one as young as a 10-month old. She followed up by sharing a photo of a Palestinian boy who was detained by Israeli police after he, at the age of 13, attempted to kill two Israelis during a stabbing rampage with his cousin. “Ahmed Manasra, abducted by the Israeli occupation at the age of 12, has endured solitary confinement despite his severe health condition. Hundreds of Palestinian children remain detained. Suffering in Israeli jails,” she wrote. Ms. Hadid has also been accused of attempting to portray Hamas terrorists positively after she shared an infographic which claimed that rescued Israeli hostage Almog Meir Jan had been given a cake by his captors while spending his birthday in captivity. Mr. Jan was taken from the Nova festival on October 7 and was held hostage in the home of Palestinian Chronicle correspondent Abdallah Aljamal. He, and the other hostages who were freed from Aljamal’s home in central Gaza reportedly suffered from serious malnutrition during their 245 days in captivity. She has also publicly accused Israel of being an apartheid “Jewish supremacist” state — a claim which the Anti-Defamation League debunks as “inaccurate, offensive, and often used to delegitimize and denigrate Israel as a whole.”In response to Ms. Hadid’s social media posts, American advocacy group StopAntisemitism has even set up an entire webpage dedicated to publicizing her alleged antisemitic transgressions.StopAntisemism also came out against the Adidas campaign, alluding to prior accusations of antisemitism waged against the German shoe company. “If the shoe fits,” they wrote on X, tagging Adidas. “How on par,” they added. Adidas had to cut ties with rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after he publicly praised Adolf Hitler and spread antisemitic tropes on social media. He also took to X to announce his plan of “going death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE .”A year after the shoe company put an end to their sneaker line with Mr. West, the chief executive of Adidas, Bjørn Gulden, was accused of attempting to downplay the disgraced rapper’s allegations of antisemitism. “I don’t think he meant what he said and I don’t think he’s a bad person — it just came across that way,” Mr. Gulden said while guest starring on a podcast. After the podcast surfaced, head of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch, stated that he spoke with Mr. Gulden to remind him “that Ye’s antisemitic tirade has real world consequences that can neither be minimized nor dismissed for any reason.” Mr. Deutch added that The American Jewish Committee has documented several instances of antisemitic incidents linked to the disgraced rapper’s antisemitic comments. Ms. Hadid has yet to address the criticism over her campaign.

Adidas Drops 1972 Olympic Shoe Relaunch Featuring Bella Hadid After Campaign Branded ‘Antisemitic’

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