— Mia K. (@miakhalifa)
January 15, 2024
The encounter took place on 15 January outside the convention centre, where an antique jewelry show was hosted between 11-15 January.
In the short clip, the Lebanese-born influencer asks the woman’s son: “Are you proud of you mom?”
When the woman approaches Khalifa to show her necklace, which bears the Hebrew symbol for “life”, Khalifa pointedly asks, “Are you waiting for the bus? Because I’m waiting for my valet.”
[Missing Credit]The unnamed Jewish woman showed Khalifa her necklace, which means "life" in Hebrew.
The woman then leans back towards Khalifa to repeat “Am Yisrael Chai”, to which Khalifa responds: “Get away from me, your breath smells awful. Oh my god, you smell like knock-off falafel.”
Khalifa walks away, at which point the woman calls, “Bye! Am Yisrael Chai!”
Despite Khalifa’s allegations that the woman called her slurs, these insults were not caught in the video.
The 30-year-old former adult film star has been vocal in her support for Palestine and has made comments on X that indicate support for Hamas’ brutal October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians. She was dropped by Playboy magazine after tweeting several controversial statements on October. 7, one of which seemed to call on Hamas terrorists to film clearer footage of their attacks: “Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal”.
In response to criticism over the since-deleted tweet, Khalifa posted: “I just wanna make sure there’s 4k footage of my people breaking down the walls of the open air prison they’ve been forced out of their homes and into so we have good options for the history books that write about how how they freed themselves from apartheid.”
In another tweet from October 7, Khalifa joked: “I can’t believe the Zionist apartheid regime is being brought down by guerrilla fighters in fake Gucci shirts - the biopics of these moments better reflect that.”
She also reposted a photo of Hamas terrorists in the back of a truck and captioned it: “This is a renaissance painting.”
Khalifa’s comments resulted in the loss of her contract with Playboy; a statement released by the company said: “Over the past few days, Mia has made disgusting and reprehensible comments celebrating Hamas’ attacks on Israel and the murder of innocent men, women and children. At Playboy, we encourage free expression and constructive political debate, but we have a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech. We expect Mia to understand that her words and actions have consequences.”
Khalifa was born in Beirut and moved to the States in 2001 during the South Lebanon conflict with Israel. The influencer, whose real name is Sarah Joe Chamoun, became a controversial figure when she filmed pornographic sketches while wearing a hijab in 2019.
In response to the video posted on 15 January, Israeli writer and activist Hen Mazzig posted on X: “If you’re a Jew and you see an antisemite like Mia Khalifa in the street, there are only 3 words you need to say: Am Yisrael Chai! Give this woman a medal.”
He added: “It’s truly telling how the best response an antisemite like Mia Khalifa can give is to tell her she smells. Jew-haters are looking an awful lot like school yard bullies trying to push people around to make themselves feel better.”
The JC reached out to Mia Khalifa for comment.
