‘Hi Gigi, [this] is for you,’: Israel launches Instagram story offensive against Gigi Hadid over her support for Palestine
Israel’s official Instagram account posted a series of stories on Sunday calling out model Gigi Hadid for her alleged “silence” about Hamas after it attacked Israeli settlements and soldiers last Saturday.
“Hi Gigi, the next story is for you,” the account posted, with a screenshot of a graphic Hadid posted on her story earlier in the day.
“There is nothing Jewish about the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians,” read the first slide on the graphic Hadid shared, which was originally posted by an account called @consent.wizardy. “Condemning the Israeli government is not antisemitic and supporting Palestinians is not supporting Hamas.”
“I implore you to get your news from trusted news sources and not from social media,” reads the second slide on Hadid’s post.
Israel’s Instagram responded to the story with its own graphic, edited to look like the original post.
“There is nothing valiant about Hamas’ massacre of Israelis. Condemning Hamas for what it is (ISIS) is not anti-Palestine and supporting Israelis in their fight against barbaric terrorists is the right thing to do,” reads the graphic.
“@gigihadid have you been sleeping the past week? Or are you just fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes? Your silence has been very clear about where you stand. We see you,” Israel went on.
“If you don’t condemn this your words mean NOTHING,” read Israel’s next story, above a photo of a bloodstained floor in a children’s bedroom.
Since a Hamas attack on settlements and soldiers across the Southern border of Israel last Saturday 2,329 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with more than 1,300 Israelis dead in the first attack on Saturday, reported the Associated Press.
Gigi and her sister Bella Hadid have a Palestinian father and have posted over the years about their support for Palestine.
In 2021, Israel’s X account posted a tweet condemning Bella Hadid for going to a pro-Palestine protest where she chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a common chant at pro-Palestine protests expressing a desire for a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which some say implies the elimination of Israel.
“When celebrities like @BellaHadid advocate for throwing Jews into the sea, they are advocating for the elimination of the Jewish State,” Israel’s Twitter account said in the post.
However, the attack is quite bizarre because last Tuesday, Gigi Hadid posted a graphic on her Instagram page where she said that while she had “hopes and dreams for Palestinians, none of them include the harm of a Jewish person.”
“The terrorizing of innocent people is not in alignment with & does not do any good for the ‘Free Palestine’ movement,” her post read in part. “The idea that it does has fueled a painful, decades long-cycle of back&forth retaliation (which no innocent civilian, Palestinian or Israeli, deserves to be a casualty of), and helps perpetuate the false idea that being Pro-Palestine = antisemitic.”
“weird as hell,” posted one redditor on the r/Fauxmoi subreddit, a gossip forum which discussed Israel’s story. “this whole thing sounds weirdly threatening and personal, esp the we see you.”
“mostly all of israel's official social media accounts tweet like this. its so bizarre and wholly inappropriate,” responded another redditor. “I remember a tweet i think it was last year where they showed in bomb emojis the amount they had recently dropped. they treat things like its a stan war.”
Gigi Hadid’s publicist didn’t respond to questions about whether Israel’s story made Hadid change her mind on what she’d posted, or what she thought about being called out personally by Israel’s social media team.
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