Tag: War / War On The Public / War Against Citizens

Adidas apologises to Bella Hadid after she appeared in campaign criticised by Israel

Sportswear company issues statement after accusations it was conflating Palestinian identity with terrorism

Ellie Violet Bramley Wed 24 Jul 2024 10.38 EDT

Adidas has apologised to the model Bella Hadid after pulling adverts in which she was promoting a sport shoe first launched to coincide with the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Adidas last week said it was “revising” its campaign after criticism from Israel over Hadid’s involvement in the campaign for the retro SL72 trainers. Hadid is an American whose family has roots in Palestine.

The apology, issued on Instagram, said: “Connections continue to be made to the terrible tragedy that occurred at the Munich Olympics due to our recent SL72 campaign,” referring to the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre when Israeli athletes were taken hostage by the Black September Organization, a Palestinian militant group. Eleven Israelis, a German police officer and five of the attackers died.

The statement continued: “These connections are not meant, and we apologise for any upset or distress caused to communities around the world. We made an unintentional mistake. We also apologise to our partners, Bella Hadid, ASAP Nast, Jules Koundé, and others, for any negative impact on them and we are revising the campaign.”

On Friday, the German-based company had said in a statement it was “revising the remainder of the campaign” after criticism over Hadid’s involvement by Israel on X. “Guess who the face of their campaign is?” read a post on Israel’s official account. “Bella Hadid, a model who has a history of spreading antisemitism and calling for violence against Israelis and Jews.”

Hadid had previously been criticised by Israel for allegedly chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” on a march in 2021.

Adidas was condemned by some Jewish organisations, with the American Jewish Committee labelling its decision as either a “massive oversight or intentionally inflammatory”. Others came out in support of Hadid. One fellow Adidas ambassador, the Palestinian-American author and activist Amani al-Khatahtbeh, posted an email she sent to Adidas on X, in which she said: “Bella Hadid is a model of Palestinian origin that has been a much-needed outspoken advocate for human right.” She added: “Adidas’s disappointing response conflates our Palestinian identity with terrorism.”

Hadid, 27, whose father is the Palestinian businessman Mohamed Hadid, has been vocal in her support for Palestine. In May she expressed her solidarity by wearing a dress crafted out of red and white keffiyehs during the film festival in Cannes. In 2023 she denounced the far-right Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for saying Jewish settlers had more rights than Palestinians in occupied territories.

When she appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine in 2021, she said on Instagram: “A Palestinian girl on the cover of Vogue. The joy it brings me to say that … I won’t stop talking about the systematic oppression, pain and humility that Palestinians face on a regular basis.”

Hadid, who recently launched her own wellness brand, has faced death threats for her outspoken support.

The apology to Hadid and her fellow Adidas partners comes amid reports that she is speaking to lawyers about her options.

A trend-setter across fashion, Hadid is perhaps particularly influential in the trainer space – she was a driver of the widespread popularity of the Adidas It-trainer, the Samba, which has been ubiquitous in recent years. She started wearing the SL72s, which are part of a campaign by Adidas to revive a series of its classic trainer models, earlier this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/article/2024/jul/24/adidas-apologises-bella-hadid-campaign-criticism-israel

Peace and Justice History for 7/27:

July 27, 1919
A riot began in Chicago when police refused to arrest a white man who was responsible for the death of a young black man, Eugene Williams. The 29th Street Beach on Lake Michigan was used by both black and white Chicagoans. But the man had been throwing stones at the black boys swimming there before hitting Williams.
The Coroner’s report on the riot described the events as follows: “Five days of terrible hate and passion let loose, cost the people of Chicago 38 lives (15 white and 23 colored), wounded and maimed several hundred, destroyed property of untold value, filled thousands with fear, blemished the city and left in its wake fear and apprehension for the future . . . .”
The city’s booming economy, especially jobs in the stockyards, had drawn many blacks during the Great Migration from the South, more than doubling their population in just three years. Only one policeman died in the chaos, Patrolman John Simpson, 31, an African American working out of the Wabash Avenue Station. (Read more: https://www.newhistorian.com/2015/07/29/chicago-race-riot-1919/
July 27, 1953
After three years of bloody and frustrating war leading to stalemate, the United States, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea agreed to a truce, bringing the Korean War—and America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war”—to an end (South Korean President Syngman Rhee opposed the truce and refused to sign). U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had taken office six months earlier, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin had died that March.
Korean War Memorialphoto: Heather StanfieldThe armistice signed this day ended hostilities and created the 4000-meter-wide (2.5 miles) demilitarized zone (DMZ), a buffer between North and South Korean forces, but was not a permanent peace treaty. It also set up a system for exchanging prisoners of war: 12,000 held by the North, 75,000 by South Korea, the U.S. and the U.N. allied forces.
There were four million military and civilian casualties, including 16,000 from countries which were part of the U.N.-allied forces; 415,000 South and 520,000 North Koreans died.There were also an estimated 900,000 Chinese casualties. 36,516 died out of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who served in the conflict.
July 27, 1954
The democratically elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, after receiving 65% of the vote, was overthrown by CIA-paid and -trained mercenaries. There followed a series of military dictatorships that waged a genocidal war against the indigenous Mayan Indians and against political opponents into the ’90s. Nearly 200,000 citizens died over the nearly four decades of civil war.
“They have used the pretext of anti-communism. The truth is very different. The truth is to be found in the financial interests of the fruit company [United Fruit, which controlled more land than any other individual or group in the country. It also owned the railway, the electric utilities, telegraph, and the country’s only port at Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.] and the other U.S. monopolies which have invested great amounts of money in Latin America and fear that the example of Guatemala would be followed by other Latin countries . . . I took over the presidency with great faith in the democratic system, in liberty and the possibility of achieving economic independence for Guatemala.”Jacobo Arbenz
More about Arbenz  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKarbenz.htmThe real coup story through official U.S. documents  https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/
July 27, 1996
Known as the “Weep for Children Plowshares,” four women were arrested for pouring their own blood on weaponry at the Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut, on the morning of the launch of the last-built Ohio-class submarine, the U.S.S. Louisiana. The 18 such submarines carry about half of the U.S. nuclear deterrent – 24 Trident I & II missiles with a range of 7400 km (4600 miles), each with several warheads known as MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles).
Trident sub being loadedDetails of the action  https://www.jonahhouse.org/archive/weep.htm

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july27

Nearly 5,000 workers evacuated from Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, minister says

https://kyivindependent.com/nearly-5-000-workers-were-evacuated-from-russian-occupied-nuclear-power-plant-in-zaporizhzhia-minister-says/

by Kateryna Hodunova andThe Kyiv Independent news deskJuly 19, 2024 8:14 PM

Illustrative purposes only: The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as seen from the streets of Nikopol, the city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, on July 6, 2023. (Amadeusz Swierk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Around 5,000 workers were rescued from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on July 19 during a press conference.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Its position near the front line has led to heightened nuclear safety risks throughout Russia’s full-scale war.

All evacuated employees were the workers of Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, Energoatom, according to Halushchenko.

Halushchenko also brought up that since February 2024, Russian forces have banned access to the plant for those employees who remained in the occupied territory.

“This is the personnel that we plan to attract to complete the construction of Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant units,” he added.

In April, Energoatom started building reactor units 5 and 6 at the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant using U.S. technology that would help prevent power outages in case of Russian attacks.

After the reactor units 5 and 6 are built and units 3 and 4 are put into operation, the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant’s power generating capacity will exceed the one of the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to Energoatom

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on July 11 demanding that Russia withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and restore full control of the facility to Ukraine.

The resolution also condemns Russia for failing to implement safety protocols set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and calls on Moscow to allow IAEA inspectors full access to the plant’s facilities. (snip)