Adidas criticised for collab with Bella Hadid on 1972 Olympics shoe

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 17, 2024

Bella Hadid has been accused of “fanning the flames of antisemitism” by spreading misinformation about Israel. She has accused Israel of being an apartheid “Jewish supremacist” state and claimed “Jesus was Palestinian”.

Stop Antisemitism called Adidas’ choice “on par” for the company, which has previously been criticised for its relationship with Kanye West. The company ended their creative partnership with the rapper over his “unacceptable, hateful, and dangerous” comments in October 2022.

Still, last year, Adidas Chief Executive said West “didn’t mean what he said” and that he wasn’t “a bad person – it just came across that way”. He described the end to Adidas’ creative relationship with the rapper as “very unfortunate”.

West has praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Speaking in an interview with Alex Jones, he said: “There’s a lot of things I love about Hitler”. He has shared violently antisemitic posts on social media, saying he was “going death con 3 on Jewish People”.

Adidas was founded by brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler in Germany in 1924. Both brothers were members of the Nazi party, and during the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, many German athletes sported Dassler shoes.