Mohamed Hadid’s apology for comparing the IDF to the policeman who murdered George Floyd was reported widely, but not the fact that he has since erased his statement of regret.
By United with Israel Staff
Mohamed Hadid, a Los Angeles-based billionaire real estate tycoon of Jordanian-Palestinian descent, apologized on Sunday for comparing IDF soldiers to the Minneapolis policeman who murdered George Floyd, an African American. He insinuated that just as there is racism against blacks in the US, Israelis are abusing Palestinians.
Hadid posted a photo on Instagram showing an American policeman kneeling on the neck of an African-American man – in reference to George Floyd, whose murder by the officer resulted in mass rioting across the US – with his arm around an Israeli soldier who was doing the same to a Palestinian. The caption read, “Two sides of the same coin.”
Mohamed Hadid’s anti-Semitic post on Instagram
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was among a number of prominent individuals who slammed the comparison. He told The Algemeiner that, similar to previous attempts to exploit such incidents, “non-existent dots were connected” to portray “the Palestinians as people of color fighting white Israel. … We Jews know all about antisemites connecting non-existent dots to denigrate our people.”
Apparently under pressure from critics, Hadid issued an apology. His statement read in part, “Shooting an unarmed young man that has Autism and killing him hurt me deeply. If my remark came off with Anti-Semitism toward the Jewish people I do apologize.”
“I think it was a wrong time for me to be angry about what happened in Jerusalem yesterday,” he added. “You are right to be upset. Love and peace is the answer.”
The apology featured a photo of an IDF soldier assisting an elderly Arab, and Hadid said that “a picture like this gives me hope that the day will come that we can all coexist in this holy land.”
However, that wasn’t the end of the story. According to the Israellycool website, Hadid removed the apology after being slammed by anti-Israel activists. One follower, for example, wrote: “sooo Mohamed hadid is okay with Palestinians being killed everyday and he wants ‘peace and unity’ but not okay with what is happening with black people…although the exact same thing is happening now.”
Indeed, Hadid’s son Anwar is dating British pop celebrity Dua Lipa, who also posted vicious lies about the Jewish state and its army – the most moral in the world – recently. The post, has since been taken down, although Lipa has not apologized, The Algemeiner reported.