Gigi and Bella Hadid’s Palestinian-American father has apologized for a slew of hateful messages he sent to New York Congressman Ritchie Torres.
Mohamed Hadid, 75, a real estate developer, offered a tepid walk back of his attack on Torres, where he began: ‘I need to apologize. Not for the anger I feel but for the words I used to express that anger.’
‘I intended to express how Mr. Torres is a shill being used by Israel,’ he added, echoing much of the sentiment in the rest of his apology.
His remarks followed a report by the New York Post detailing how Hadid has spent the past few months targeting Torres online for the congressman’s support for Israel following the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Mohamed Hadid, father of models Bella and Gigi (pictured together in 2016), offered an apology for insulting messages sent to Congressman Ritchie Torres, saying: ‘I need to apologize. Not for the anger I feel but for the words I used to express that anger’
New York Congressman Ritchie Torres said after receiving the barrage of abuse that ‘Mr. Hadid felt so at ease demonizing and dehumanizing a black Member of Congress reveals a tragic truth about our politics’
Hadid offered a tepid walk back of his messages to Torres, where he followed up his apology by branding the representative a ‘shill being used by Israel’
In texts to Torres, Hadid branded him ‘worse than the rats of the New York sewage system.’
Torres, who is gay, was also told by the model’s father that he ‘might get a job as a bouncer in a gay bar’, and that he should ‘dress as KKK to hide that ugly gray colored face of yours.’
In the face of backlash to the messages being published, Hadid issued an apology for his language, but took the opportunity to throw a few more insults Torres’ way.
He said that Torres is a ‘shill’ for Israel, ‘a state that not only ‘mistreats black and brown people but pinkwashes their atrocities using their projected gay rights as a shield for their human rights violations.’
‘My feeling after 76 years of being a refugee from the country where I and my ancestors were born and watching a genocide unfold are at an all time high,’ he continued.
‘I am watching United States politicians work as AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] messengers of genocide.
‘I used the wrong words to express this anger but the anger is warranted. To send black and brown and other marginalized communities to do the dirty work of two countries who have never respected them is wrong.
‘I apologize to my community for directing the conversation to this. And even for a minute away from Palestine. All eyes on Palestine. Free Palestine.’
Hadid held similar criticisms of Torres in his barrage of messages to the representative, which also included: ‘You are just unusual Black and colorful mouth for Israeli and AIPAC and looking for payday of over 500K.’
Torres has ben outspoken in his support for Israel following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. He is pictured touring a destroyed home at Kibbutz Nir Oz on April 01, 2024 in Nir Oz, Israel
Nova festival survivor Ofir Amir (L) speaks with US Rep. Ritchie Torres (R) during a visit to the Nova festival memorial on April 01, 2024 in Re’im, Israel
Congressman Ritchie Torres speaks at the IAC National Summit at The Diplomat Beach Resort on December 11, 2021 in Hollywood, Florida
Mohamed has previously called president Joe Biden a ‘Zionist war criminal’ who will be ‘hunted down like the Nazis’
Torres, who made history when in 2021 he was the first openly gay African American and openly gay Hispanic member of Congress, said he felt ‘dehumanized’ by the messages from Hadid.
Speaking to the Post, Torres said: ‘Whether it is dehumanizing me as worse than the rats of the NYC sewage system or telling me to dress like the KKK to ‘hide that gray colored face of yours,’ Mr. Hadid has hurled just about every racist insult at me shorting of calling me the N-word.
‘That Mr. Hadid felt so at ease demonizing and dehumanizing a black Member of Congress reveals a tragic truth about our politics: if you are a person of color and pro-Israel, you are fair game for racist invective.’
Hadid previously came under attack after posting an image on Instagram showing the flag of Israel split with the flag of the Nazi Party, comparing the two.
The post read that the Nazi Party had been ‘founded on Aryan supremacy’ while Israel was ‘founded on Jewish supremacy.’
It also compared the Nazi’s ‘signature method’ of the ‘gas chambers’ to Israel’s ‘signature method’ of ‘carpet bombing’.
Mohamed, who was born into a Palestinian family in Nazareth, captioned the post: ‘And both added and labeled the victims as terrorists, regardless of other activities.
‘Some Palestinians and some Jews even changed their names.’
Last month he called President Joe Biden a ‘Zionist war criminal’ who will be ‘hunted down like the Nazis’.
The image also compared the method of the Nazi gas chambers to the bombing of Gaza, and Auschwitz to the Gaza Strip
L-R Bella Hadid, Yolanda Foster, Gigi Hadid and Mohamed Hadid attend the Victoria’s Secret After Party at the Grand Palais on November 30, 2016 in Paris, France
Bella was pictured attending a pro-Palestine rally in New York City in May of 2021
In yet another scathing post against Israel and the US, he wrote: ‘This is Biden’s war on the Palestinian people.
‘He will be in the court with the rest of the Zionist Criminals. We will hunt them down like they did the Nazis.’
Hadid has previously stepped in to defend his model daughters, who are outspoken about their support for Palestine.
‘My kids always have followed their intuition when it comes to human torture and human nature – what happens to humans on earth. From the disaster in Turkey to the famine in Africa and homelessness in Southeast Asia, they have been involved in these things, building schools for UNICEF and so on.
‘It’s always been a humanitarian issue in their blood, nothing to do with being Palestinian,’ he said.
Gigi sparked outrage with her Instagram story labeling Manasra a ‘child prisoner of war.’ In 2013, Manasra – then 12 – went on a stabbing rampage in Jerusalem.
She was also slammed for sharing a Reel in about Israelis harvesting Palestinian organs that had been posted online by a TikTok make-up artist from Cardiff, Wales.
The video highlighted a documentary in which Israeli health officials talked about doctors harvesting organs from in the 1990s.
In her apology note, Hadid wrote: ‘It is important to me to share real stories about the hardships that Palestinians have endured and continue to endure, but this weekend I shared something that I did not fact check or think deeply about prior to reposting.
‘Unfortunately, I used the wrong example to make that point, and I regret that.’ Bella Hadid has also been outspoken in her support of Palestine since the conflict broke out.