Adidas’ Olympics Campaign — With or Without Bella Hadid — Is a Disgrace to Israelis and Jews
Bella Hadid in a now-cancelled Adidas campaign for the brand’s remake of its SL 72 sneaker. Photo: Adidas
The decision makers at Adidas are either suffering from mental decline, incompetence, or the virus of antisemitism.
The German shoe company fired Bella Hadid — an anti-Israel model and social media influencer who has more than 61.3 million Instagram followers — from a campaign marking the 52nd anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics, and their shoes from that year.
Forget Hadid for a second.
On September 5, 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists from the group Black September posed as athletes, and took 11 Israeli athletes and coaches hostage, killing two on the scene, and the remaining nine in helicopters by grenade and by shooting them.
German forces refused requests to have an Israeli special unit come to try to save them, and then bungled their own operation. Ultimately, some German police officers weren’t willing to go through with the operation. What a surprise that Germans didn’t want to risk their life to save Jews.
While none of the 200+ prisoners the terrorists demanded to be released from Israeli jails were freed, in a press conference, a Palestinian terrorist said it was a success because the whole world was talking about their cause.
To make matters worse, initial press reports claimed the hostages were saved, only to later be corrected, as ABC’s Jim McKay said, “They’re all gone.”
The Olympics continued anyway, and Israel buried Moshe Weinberg, Yossef Romano, Ze’ev Friedman, David Berger, Yacov Springer, Eliezer Halfin, Yosef Guttfreund, Kehat Shorr, Mark Slavin, and Andre Spitzer.
In addition, the International Olympic Committee long rejected Israel’s request for a moment of silence for the athletes at the games in an open display of antisemitism.
For more horrific details about the attack, which were only released in the early 1990s, click here.
Why in the world is Adidas having any campaign to honor the 1972 Olympics, or the relaunch of its SL72 shoe line?
Furthermore, Hadid’s history of refusing to condemn Palestinian terrorism is disturbing.
She did not specially condemn Hamas for the massacre of October 7, but wrote that she condemned terrorist attacks on any civilians. Her father, Mohamed, was born in Nazareth in 1948, and the family is notorious for its anti-Israel activism.
Hadid has filed a lawsuit she may very well win against Adidas. The decision to hire Hadid (and fire her after complaints from Jews and others) is revolting, but the company, which cut ties with Kanye West after his antisemitic meltdown, has said it will in some way revamp the ad campaign.
Perhaps they will find Jamal al-Gashey, believed to be the only current surviving terrorist of the attack at the Munich Olympics, who appeared in the documentary One Day in September, to endorse the sneaker line.
The stupidity or malice of the ad with Hadid only causes more tension and hatred for Jews, if that is even possible at this point.
In 2022, Germany announced a payment of $28 million to families of the Israelis murdered in the 1972 attack, and last year, the government announced an international commission to “rigorously examine the period before and after” the attack — more than 50 years after it took place.
I guess Germans aren’t always punctual.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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