September 7, 2022

When you love Israel, it’s painful to watch as she’s incessantly bashed by multi-millionaires (and a few billionaires) who seem to believe they’re experts in the geopolitics of the Middle East. But when that kind of blind bias occurs among those with tens of millions of social media followers, do you know what proves particularly cathartic? Imagining which Western-based, Israel-bashing celebrities you’d love to send to the Middle East.

World-famous model Bella Hadid, whose mother is a Dutch former model and whose father is a Palestinian-Jordanian real estate mogul (who is now based in Beverly Hills), has always espoused anti-Israel views. In 2017, she protested outside the American Embassy in London to declare her opposition to then-President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. How I wish that she would have actually visited Jerusalem and met with — believe it or not — the most vocal Arab members of Israel’s Knesset, if only to witness the unique vibrancy of Israel’s democratic system. 

But Hadid saved her worst vitriol for the May 2021 war between Israel and Hamas. In one Instagram story, she posted, “One cannot advocate for racial equality, LGBT and women’s rights, condemn corrupt and abusive regimes and other injustices yet choose to ignore the Palestinian oppression.”

I was hopelessly dumbfounded by this observation. In fact, you could have hit me over the head with a Persian cucumber and I still wouldn’t have believed it. It’s almost as if the model didn’t know that Palestinian leadership is rife with corruption, “abusive regimes” and hideous oppression. Almost. 

Did I mention that Hadid has nearly 55 million Instagram followers? 

In several interviews last month, Hadid revealed that she’s lost both friends and job opportunities due to her high-profile anti-Israel statements. In response, one Israeli friend who was severely injured years ago in a Palestinian terror attack told me that Hadid can “cry me a river to the sea.” 

Maybe that’s too harsh. But in an April 2022 op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach condemned what he called Hadid’s “blood libels against the Jewish people,” referring to the dangers of her penchant of spreading misinformation among her tens of millions of Instagram followers.

It’s incitement that’s broadcast to millions of followers who are prone to influence in a world of misinformation: a world of zero context or nuance.

Here’s the problem: Hadid and many other antisemites on social media approach their posts with an almost casual detachment. In their minds, they’re merely exercising their right to speech, not promoting violence. And I imagine they believe that in a world of “Us versus Them,” comprised of continuous partisan spin and disregard for the truth, where no side is more guilty than the other; each is doing their part to spread their equally valid message — or so they think. The louder voice will win a bloodless coup, or so they fantasize. But I wonder whether these Israel bashers pause to think that this speech is potential incitement to hatred, and violence, toward Israelis and Jews around the world. It’s incitement that’s broadcast to millions of followers who are prone to influence in a world of misinformation: a world of zero context or nuance.

This August, the 25-year-old Hadid, who was born in Washington, D.C., told Libyan American journalist Noor Tagouri about the consequences she faced as a result of her pro-Palestinian advocacy: “I had friends that completely dropped me, like even friends that I had been having dinner with on Friday nights, for seven years, now just won’t let me into their house,” said Hadid. 

Maybe her friends were triggered Jews who decided to give Friday night Shabbat dinners a try instead, or perhaps they were Jews who were adhering to a little-known, seven-year sabbatical law that forbids contact with unabashed Israel haters (I’m kidding, of course).

But there’s a paradox to Hadid’s penchant for bashing Israel: In a GQ interview, she also claimed that she feels “detached” from her Palestinian identity as a result of parents’ 2000 divorce, adding, “For so long I was missing that part of me, and it made me really, really sad and lonely. I would have loved to grow up and be with my dad every day and studying and really being able to practice [Islam], just in general being able to live in a Muslim culture.” 

Did I mention that Hadid loves to post photos of herself wearing string bikinis on the beach? Last month, InStyle swooned over an Instagram image of her in what it called “the tiniest blue string bikini.” Naturally, she looked stunning, though I’ve seen Doritos that were bigger than that bikini. 

I believe it’s an injustice to hinder Hadid’s ability to frolic on the sand in one of the world’s most beautiful beaches: the shoreline of Gaza City. That’s why I’d love to send Bella Hadid to Gaza. 

And if anyone, including her 54.5 million Instagram followers, has a problem with that, it must mean that they understand the “corrupt,” “abusive regime” of so-called Palestinian leadership in Gaza, otherwise known as Hamas.

I would love for Hadid to meet with Gazans whose daughters were murdered in honor killings or whose sons were shot or hung by Hamas thugs because they were charged with homosexuality. What could she possibly say to them that would implicate Israel and not Hamas?

But there’s more: I would love for Hadid to meet with Gazans whose daughters were murdered in honor killings or whose sons were shot or hung by Hamas thugs because they were charged with homosexuality. What could she possibly say to them that would implicate Israel and not Hamas?

I don’t know about you, but I believe it would constitute an indescribably rare and precious moment if someone like Hadid finally found one Palestinian plight that she couldn’t blame on Israel. 

And if Hadid ever actually visited Gaza, I would pray for her to be safe. Though something tells me that if Hamas leaders enjoy Instagram, they’ll be less merciful. 

And after she enjoys some time in Gaza, she can visit Tel Aviv and speak with Arab Israeli Muslims frolicking on the beach. Now that would be a new and unpredictable Instagram photo.

Of course, there’s also the matter of Hadid’s oldest sister, Gigi, who also is a model (and who boasts 75 million Instagram followers). In March 2022, Gigi wrote a delightful Instagram post: “I am pledging to donate my earnings … to aid those suffering from the war in Ukraine, as well as continuing to support those experiencing the same in Palestine … HANDS OFF UKRAINE, HANDS OFF PALESTINE, PEACE PEACE PEACE.”

No, Gigi is too clear-minded and unbiased to enjoy a few weeks in Gaza. But I hear there’s a promising new job opening in the Iranian Ministry of Information, complete with a stunning view of downtown Tehran.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning, LA-based writer, speaker and civic action advocate who was born in post-revolutionary Iran.

Is it possible that the United States wants a nuclear deal more than Iran? And if so, at what cost?

For several months now, the Iranians have alternated between boycotting negotiations altogether and returning to the table with demands that have already been rejected. (Meanwhile, their scientists continue to steadily progress toward full nuclear capacity.) While the Europeans and Americans search for possible reasons for optimism – whether they actually exist or not – Israel, Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the Middle East offer ongoing warnings about the hazards of an actual deal.

This has been the fairly constant state of play ever since Joe Biden took office, but a new and even more dangerous dynamic has emerged since the Russian invasion of Ukraine several months ago. As the international embargo against Russia strengthens and begins to undermine the military capabilities of Vladmir Putin’s armed forces, it appears that Russia has begun using large numbers of Iranian-made suicide drones on the battlefield.

Even countries like China and India, which have continued to purchase large amounts of Russian oil to keep that country’s economy solvent, are refusing to supply Putin with the weapons he requires to fully wage war against the unexpectedly strong resistance that the Ukrainians have provided. Russia desperately needs a reliable source for arms, and the mullahs who rule Iran have been more than happy to help. 

From the very beginning, Western negotiators have agreed to separate talks about Iran’s nuclear capacity from the wide range of ballistic weapons, terrorism and other aggression that the country employs against its enemies. This leads to awkward and embarrassing situations where American diplomats are offering encouraging news of progress at the same time that U.S. troops and those of its allies are forced to defend themselves against Iran’s military. The counter-argument that the negotiation’s defenders offer is that Iran will never cease their non-nuclear attacks and that stopping their development of atomic weapons is of such import that the other goals must wait.

That was a difficult argument to sustain even before the Russia-Ukraine war. But now that defeating Putin has appropriately become the most important Western security objective, the spectacle of Iran supplying Russia with armaments makes the logic of separating Iran’s various types of belligerence even less defensible. If stopping Putin is our most important goal, then it’s reasonable to ask why are we negotiating with his key arms suppliers – and making no real effort to convince them to stop aiding the Russian war machine.

Iran’s representatives have returned to the nuclear talks with demands that the U.S. and its allies have long since declared unacceptable. 

In the meantime, Iran’s representatives have returned to the nuclear talks with demands that the U.S. and its allies have long since declared unacceptable. This summer, the Iranians grudgingly gave in to Western insistence that their Islamic Revolutionary Guard would not be removed from American terrorist blacklists that heavily sanction their members’ activities. But now, the Iranians have resurrected a long-dismissed condition that the U.S. remain committed to an agreement even under a new presidential administration. For years, Western diplomats have tried to explain that voters in a democracy are empowered to elect representatives who may reflect a different approach than their predecessors. But the Iranians remain deliberately oblivious to the concept and have repeatedly used this tactic as an effective way of delaying any meaningful progress.

Iran has also returned to their long-held ultimatum that an ongoing United Nations investigation of their undeclared nuclear activity (in other words, identifying their previous violations of the original agreement) be shut down before a new deal is implemented. Western diplomats continue to press forward in the face of such stalling tactics — even while Iran provides weaponry to Russia’s military forces and prolongs the war in Ukraine. 

Of even greater concern is that Iran has also engaged in joint military exercises with both Russian and China’s armed forces, indicating that this joint geopolitical challenge will get worse before it gets better. The U.S. has become increasingly confrontational in language and action toward both of those other countries. It’s worth asking what Iran’s leaders would have to do for a similarly confrontational approach to be employed against them.

Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www/lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.

Last week Kenneth Stern published an article explaining that campus groups in the United States should have the right to exclude Zionists. Respectfully, Stern is simply wrong, as a matter of law, and no one should rely on his analysis.  

Stern conflates political speech with identity, and confuses ideology with status. It is true that “people on campus must be allowed to define their politics.” That is why, as Stern notes, the Young Republicans do not have to include a Bernie Sanders supporter. But as Stern also acknowledges, for many people Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity, and has nothing to do with political positions. Nor is it something they are actively communicating when they join a group that has nothing to do with Israel. Student groups cannot discriminate against people because of their identities. That is why no one would dare suggest that the Young Democrats should have the right to exclude all Black or Asian people from their ranks. Student groups do not have the right to exclude Zionists, which would exclude the vast majority of Jews.

Stern is wrong when he casually implies that student groups have an unrestricted right to freedom of association. He cites a case, Hurley v. Irish American GLIB Ass’n, that upheld the First Amendment right of St. Patrick’s Day parade organizers to exclude an Irish gay pride group from their march, but he misunderstands and misapplies that ruling. The Supreme Court actually noted that the parade did not exclude gay people in general, but rather excluded a group that wanted to communicate a particular message during the parade. As one post-Hurley case noted, “the lesson we draw from Hurley is that the principle of ‘speaker’s autonomy’ gives a speaker the right, in some circumstances, to prevent certain groups from contributing to the speaker’s speech, if the groups’ contribution would alter the speaker’s message.” In that case, Hsu By & Through Hsu v. Roslyn Union Free Sch. Dist. No. 3 (2d Cir. 1996), the Court also clarified that there is a required nexus between the group’s purpose for existence and its desired exclusionary principles. Thus, a “hypothetical chess club that excluded Muslims could not claim that the exclusion was necessary to guarantee committed chess players.” Even under Hurley, then, to exclude all Zionists because of who they are remains antisemitic discrimination.

Stern is correct when he writes that “University administrators should work to ensure that no student is harassed, intimidated, or bullied because of their identity, or for any other reason, including their politics.” But he sadly misstates the legal standard, which leads to his awfully incorrect and dangerous conclusion. Under Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, recipients of federal funding must ensure their programs are free from harassment, intimidation and discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin. In a September 13, 2004 Dear Colleague letter, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education for enforcement Kenneth L. Marcus clarified that under Title VI, OCR must investigate antisemitism complaints to the extent that they implicate racial, ethnic or ancestral bias. This (now longstanding) position has been confirmed by the Department on numerous occasions, and in courts as well (both in Title VI and Title VII cases). Discriminating against Jewish people and/or their allies because of their belief in the historical/ethnic/cultural/Jewish ideal of Jewish self-determination in the Jewish ancestral homeland is a form of ethnic/racial/national origin antisemitism, and it is illegal under Title VI. This is aside from the numerous school-specific anti-discrimination policies that most universities tend to have.

Often, student groups that start by demanding Zionists leave campus end up threatening, then committing outright violence against Jews should they refuse to go. 

It is also worth noting that study after study has shown that the kind of discriminatory rhetoric involved in wanting to exclude all Zionists  (with the understanding that “Zionist” is merely an epithet for “Jew” in the same way that “banker,” “globalist” and other such dog-whistles have been used over the centuries to target, demonize and incite against Jewish people) leads directly to antisemitic action. These studies are confirmed every time allegedly non-antisemitic “anti-Zionist” activism breaks through the “nonviolent” veil, leading to people getting hurt. Often, student groups that start by demanding Zionists leave campus end up threatening, then committing outright violence against Jews should they refuse to go. 

That is why it is important to be crystal clear that student groups do not have the “right” to exclude Zionists. 

This week in a blog post for The Times of Israel, Kenneth G. Stern made the rather bizarre argument that while yes, progressive groups on college campuses making a point to exclude Zionist students from their organizations may be hurtful to Jewish students, while yes, it may feel like an attack on the very nature of their Jewish identity, and while yes, it places an unfair litmus test on only Jewish students to disavow their national sympathies, it must be allowed to happen because campus groups must be permitted to “define their own politics.” The piece provides a litany of reasons for why Zionists should not be banned from LGBT rights organizations or abortion rights advocacy groups at our universities. In fact, Stern offers more reasons to be against his central argument than to be for it, and yet he concludes that Jewish students must grin and bear the exclusion anyway in the name of an imperfectly articulated ideal of “selectivity.” 

Stern’s piece comes on the heels of a recently announced lawsuit by The Brandeis Center for Human Rights and Jewish On Campus against the State University of New York (SUNY) New Paltz, on the basis that a campus support group for victims of sexual assault all but purged from the organization two students who expressed support for Israel’s existence on their Instagram pages. The suits reads: “[SUNY New Paltz is] is denying Jewish and Israeli survivors of sexual assault on campus equal access to the educational opportunities and services they need, on the basis of their shared ancestry, ethnicity and national origin in violation of Title VI.” This issue being brought forth to the Department of Education has been a long time coming. Hundreds of Jewish students over the last decade, myself included, have made the same complaint that they were made to feel unwelcome and ostracized in left-wing spaces on campus simply because they refuse to deny Israel’s right to exist. The Department of Education will be entrusted to decide whether that is in fact discrimination, which I would argue strongly that it is. 

None should doubt Stern’s credentials when it comes to questions of antisemitism. He wrote the widely adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism and served as legal counsel to the defense when David Irving, a renowned Holocaust denier, accused Professor Deborah Lipstadt of defaming him. He has researched antisemitism and different forms of hate at the American Jewish Committee and at Bard College and has written thoughtful evaluations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its ramifications on campuses in years past. However, Jews involved in these conversations must reserve the right to criticize each other’s opinions, especially when dealing with the social contagion of anti-Zionism that promises to wreak havoc on the Jewish community once its activists graduate from the campus and into our institutions. 

This opinion is one such case. Stern’s main argument is as follows: Because Jewish organizations such as Hillel and Chabad make a point to exclude anti-Zionists from their organizations based on political sensitivities, the exclusion of Zionists should be protected as well, and any political group has the right to set its own normative boundaries as to not upset their purpose. “One wouldn’t want to force a Young Republican club to include a Bernie Sanders supporter (or vice versa),” Stern writes. 

If groups on campus have the right to set their own boundaries to ensure their own purpose is fulfilled, then Jewish groups that seek to represent the Jewish community absolutely reserve the right to draw a line around the more than 90 percent of the world’s Jewish population that believe in Israel’s right to exist. Anti-Zionists are excluded from Jewish organizations because these organizations are Zionist by their very nature as Jewish. A Jewish group like Hillel excluding anti-Zionist BDSers is the equivalent of the Black Student Union excluding MAGA Republicans from their ranks. This is not ideological discrimination; these are Jews setting the boundary of their own community, which is a step taken by every other community in order to feel secure. This is especially true considering those who fall outside of this majority — and even more so those in the tiny minority who actively campaign for Israel’s dissolution — are so inseparable from traditional antisemitic conspiracy theories, tropes and rhetoric that their movement hardly exists without them. If anti-Zionism is antisemitism, as the IHRA definition of antisemitism (written by Stern himself) notes, then Jews should not allow antisemites into their spaces, especially if these individuals choose to use their Judaism to hurt their own community.

When progressive clubs that advocate for a variety of issues place rules on only one specific national expression and self-determination movement it is both a double standard and antisemitic.

The clubs that ban Zionists, unlike Jewish organizations that ban anti-Zionists, are, in contrast, not anti-Zionist by their nature. A campus labor rights organization, a criminal justice reform coalition, or, in the case of SUNY New Paltz, a sexual assault support group, may champion ideas on the left-hand side of the political spectrum, but their mission statement does not concern whether a Jewish state exists in any borders in the Middle East. In terms of organizations that are explicitly anti-Zionist, like Jewish Voice for Peace or Students for Justice in Palestine, well, Zionists students are not exactly beating down the doors trying to get in. There has never been a problem with Jewish, Zionist students trying to enter these organizations. But when progressive clubs that advocate for a variety of issues place rules on only one specific national expression and self-determination movement it is both a double standard and antisemitic. In these cases, when the causes advocated for by the organization do not rely on a need to reject the very existence of Israel, doing so only makes clear the latent antisemitism of the organization itself. And that is de facto discriminatory toward Jewish students, the people on campus most likely to be Zionists.

Following Stern’s logic, it can be conceded that campus groups have a right to exclude Zionists with particular political beliefs about the State of Israel. For example, a left-wing organization may be justifiably uncomfortable with a member who routinely advocates for the annexation of the West Bank or the displacement of Palestinians. However, the very existence of the State of Israel itself, as Stern concedes, is a fundamental and integral facet of Jewish identity and expression. Many Jews on campus channel their relationship with Judaism through Zionism and through Israel. To ban every Zionist from your table is the equivalent of banning most if not all Chinese students, Mexican students, or Swedish students who are simply uncomfortable with the proposition of their home country being annihilated. 

The title of Stern’s article is “Yes it may hurt, but campus groups have the right to exclude Zionists.” I would suggest that while yes, it may hurt to stand your ground as a proud Jew and a proud Zionist, we must not allow the non-Jewish world to dictate in which spaces we can and cannot participate. As former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin once said, “I am Not a Jew with Trembling Knees,” meaning it is incumbent on all confident Jews to refrain from showing weakness in the face of abject discrimination and subjugation. Doing this is not always easy, but if the campus is indeed ground zero of an upswell of antisemitism that is seeping into the broader culture at large, then yes, it may hurt, but Jewish knees must not tremble.

Blake Flayton is the New Media Director and columnist for the Jewish Journal.

Mine was never a perfect body. Boyish before gender fluidity was a thing, my teen years were spent waiting for breasts to appear, while skipping desserts so that my waist didn’t balloon into the inevitable size 12 that was my destiny, judging by my DNA. In the 1960s, I was that girl who did not fling off her top at Woodstock to frolic in the mud. Instead I went home early to unwind and take a bath.

Between my small breast size, a tummy that refused to lie flat and hair that frizzed, public nudity and all forms of moisture were my natural enemies. As a result of those insecurities, I didn’t really learn to swim when the other, less neurotic kids, got in the pool. By adolescence, I always had my period when it was time to swim—a legitimate excuse at Jewish summer camps no matter the frequency. I couldn’t handle the thought that all eyes would be focused on my total lack of cleavage instead of my perfect back stroke.

I finally gave up on perfecting my looks at about 50. Between a freelance career and contending with my husband’s mid-life crisis, I had more than enough to worry about at that point. I hired a teacher and learned how to swim properly in a friend’s backyard pool. Thanks to a kind instructor who believed in praise, within a few weeks I was slicing through the water mindlessly. My new passion was so powerful that concerns about my hair and the age spots on my now stylish small chest melted away.

By the time I was putting on miles in public pools, sexy swimsuits were out of the question. To swim efficiently I pulled on a structureless black Speedo, scrunched my graying hair into a hideous neon swim cap, and donned insect-like iridescent goggles that wore the raccoon circles around my eyes into permanent grooves. At last I started showering with strangers—an exposure that had terrified me in the past.

It was not that I stopped caring about my looks past a certain age. It was more that I stopped caring about what everyone else was thinking about my looks. After all, this is Los Angeles. Exactly no one was appraising my looks inside or outside the pool anymore. I’m sure of it. As the driver explained a few years ago after he hit me with his car, “I didn’t see you.”

There is a liberation that comes with no longer caring about the male or female gaze. The irony is that it came so late in my own life that I regret not enjoying my beauty and my freedom earlier.

There is a liberation that comes with no longer caring about the male or female gaze. The irony is that it came so late in my own life that I regret not enjoying my beauty and my freedom earlier.

Now that I am unself-conscious enough to swim in public pools and get naked in locker rooms here is what I can report: There are bronzed high school and college athletes with the longest legs on the planet; women my age who do full makeup and hair after a swim; scars across bellies and breasts that speak of battles won and sleepless nights; random stomachs that sag and butts that stay perky. There’s the high-pitched screech of girls meeting after a summer apart and women, even older than myself, leaning on walkers as they change out of their muumuus for water aerobics.

Of course, there are loads of adorable screaming babies enduring a hell of their own. The other day, as I pulled on my granny pants next to the tiniest little girl dressed in nothing but her swim diaper and tiny barrettes, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her fresh new mind. As she stared at me in wonderment, I felt like saying:

“Don’t worry, kid. This saggy, spotty thing won’t happen to you for a long, long time. In the meantime, get in there and get wet.” Don’t waste a minute.

Los Angeles food writer Helene Siegel is the author of 40 cookbooks, including the “Totally Cookbook” series and “Pure Chocolate.” She runs the Pastry Session blog.