Israeli far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir lashed out at supermodel Bella Hadid on Friday for criticising his recent remark against Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday, August 23, Itamar Ben-Gvir in an interview with N12 News said that the right to life and movement for settlers in the West Bank trumped the right to movement for Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir stated in the interview that the limits were necessary to ensure the safety of his family. Ben-Gvir resides in the Jewish community of Kiryat Arba, which is near the volatile West Bank city of Hebron.
He referred to the occupied West Bank by its “biblical Hebrew name”, Judea and Samaria. “My right, my wife’s right, and my children’s right to travel on the roads of Judea and Samaria is more important than the right to movement for Arabs,” he stated.
Reacting to Ben-Gvir’s statements, Supermodel Bella Hadid, the daughter of Palestinian-origin businessman, Mohamed Hadid, criticised his comment on Instagram, where she has close to 60 million followers.
On Thursday, August 24, Bella Hadid who has been vocal for Palestinian rights wrote, “In no place, no time, especially in 2023 should one life be more valuable than another’s. Especially simply because of their ethnicity, culture or pure hatred.”
Palestinians have long complained about travel restrictions, such as checkpoints imposed by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank, where they have limited self-government.
On Friday, August 25, Ben-Gvir responded and accused Hadid of being an “Israel hater”. He said that the supermodel has shared only a segment of the interview on her social media account in order to portray him as a racist.
Ben-Gvir’s comment was denounced as “racist and heinous” by the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, adding that it “only confirms Israel’s apartheid regime of Jewish supremacy.”
Ben-Gvir, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has been already convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organisation for their conspiracy theory of “greater Israel”.
Both the Palestinians and the international community consider settlement construction illegal in West Bank and East Jerusalem. More than 700,000 Israelis had been settled in these territories illegally after Israel captured parts of Palestine in 1967.
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