Mumbai: #BoycottAdidas is trending strong, courtesy of their latest campaign led by Bella Hadid. Politics, genocide and the Olympics are at the centre of this fiasco
Bella, owing to her partially Palestinian lineage, has very vocally been advocating for the freedom of Palestine. This directly flies in the face of the mainstream support coming Israel’s way. While everyone is of course entitled to their opinion and their own understanding of this complicated and painful chapter in history, still evolving to-date given the never-ending violence, Adidas has messed up big time. Why? They chose to commemorate the 1972 Olympics, an edition hallmarked by the helpless massacre of Israelis on German territory — with a globally famous part-Palestinian model and part-time activist as the face — against a backdrop of red. It couldn’t possibly be worse than this.
To make Bella’s stance clearer, she herself comes from a line of Palestinian refugees, who were victims of 1948’s Nabka, the violent ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians at the hands of organised Zionist paramilitary forces.
Bella’s vociferous pro-Palestine stance has both, found its allies as well as painted a flaming hot target on her back for those in favour of Israel. While Bella has always been pro-Palestine and has also managed to build a significantly successful career despite it, her political stance in the face of the still raging Israel-Palestine conflict, will, for better or for worse, naturally have a bearing on her professional footprint.
Adidas has now apologised in an official statement to The Washington Times. Spokesperson Stefan Pursche said, “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. 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”.
