Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Arab News reports that Vogue did an instagram posting about model Gigi Hadid’s pledge to donate her fall earnings to Ukraine and Palestine, but erased the Palestine part.
The erasure attracted widespread condemnation from progressives, and Vogue has now amended its Instagram posting to restore the model’s pledge to help Palestinians, as well. Vogue’s erasure of Palestinians from its Instagram notice has been seen as part of a pattern in which Palestine as a subject has been made taboo by pro-Israeli right wing nationalists, who deny Palestinian rights to peoplehood and statehood just as Vladimir Putin denies Ukrainians rights to peoplehood and statehood. The Israeli Right insists that all Palestinian territory actually belongs to Israel and that Palestinians can never be allowed to have their own state.
The right wing Israelis accused her of antisemitism. I know this is hard to understand since she did not mention anything at all about Jews but just said she wanted to give money to help refugees. But for the Israeli Right, which does not accept that Palestinians exist and which wants to usurp all their property and erase their status as a people, bringing them up is a way of undermining the project of Greater Israel, which they in turn identify with the well-being of the Jewish people. Hence, to say the word “Palestinian” is in this warped view a form of antisemitism.
Ms. Hadid issued a statement in which she turned the tables on the Israeli supremacists. She wrote, “A refugee crisis is a refugee crisis. I will be donating to UNICEF in both war-torn countries.” She added, “This is not anti-anything except anti-human suffering and anti-war.” She pointed out that many of these refugees are children who don’t have any politics.
She further wrote, “While my dad is a Palestinian refugee who was able to make a life for himself in the United States after being born in Nazareth, there are currently over 5 million Palestinians living in refugee camps still.”
She ended the message by saying, “Cambridge University defined ‘anti-Palestinianism’ as ‘Prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Palestinians; Denial of the Nakba [the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians from their homes]; Accusing a Palestinian of ‘latent’ racism(s) without cause; Allowing Palestinian exception to all other held liberal or left values/politics.'”
Zing.
It started when Ms. Hadid put up a statement at Instagram, which has 3 million likes, in which she pledged her fall earnings on the catwalk to those suffering from war and occupation in Ukraine and Palestine. The similarity between the plights of the two peoples is something I’ve talked about here at Informed Comment .
Ms. Hadid, who is of Dutch and Palestinian heritage, wrote:
- “Having a set Fashion Month schedule has meant that my colleagues and I often present new fashion collections during heartbreaking and traumatic times in history. We don’t have control over most of our work schedules, but we would like to walk ‘for’ something. Following in the footsteps of my friend @micarganaraz, I am pledging to donate my earnings from the Fall 2022 shows to aid those suffering from the war in Ukraine, as well as continuing to support those experiencing the same in Palestine. Our eyes and hearts must be open to all human injustice. May we all see each other as brothers and sisters, beyond politics, beyond race, beyond religion. At the the end of the day, innocent lives pay for war- not leaders.
HANDS OFF UKRAINE. HANDS OFF PALESTINE. PEACE. PEACE. PEACE. 🕊 “
In its magazine story on the Instagram post, Vogue at least mentioned Palestine in passing, though they demoted it to an afterthought:
- “Gigi Hadid announced on Instagram today that she will be donating all of her fashion month earnings towards relief efforts in Ukraine, which is currently facing aggressive invasion from Russian troops under the order of President Vladimir Putin. Over the past several weeks, the model has been a staple on the catwalks, having walked for the major fall 2022 shows at Michael Kors, Versace, and Vivienne Westwood, and many others.”
The article then quoted her as saying, “I am pledging to donate my earnings from the fall 2022 shows to aid those suffering from the war in Ukraine, as well as continuing to support those experiencing the same in Palestine.”
Vogue’s initial Instagram posting just quoted the paragraph above.
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