This weekend the five Hadid children with their father Mohamed travelled to the Arab Conference at Harvard University, where 1300 prominent professionals and students — including Gigi and Bella’s father, real estate mogul Mohamed Hadid — spoke to the theme of (Re)Imagining Home.
Mohamed Hadid opened up about his Palestinian heritage, both as a keynote speaker and during his interview with journalist Jessica Azar
"I’m just a simple man from Nazareth, and I’ll always be a simple man from Palestine," the father-of-five told Azar on Sunday.
"One of my dreams is to have my kids carry the name Palestine with them everywhere they go, because it seems like we are losing that name as we go on. We want to make sure my family always carries that on."
The developer, who lived in Damascus, Beirut and Tunis before moving to the US aged 14 with his family, explained that while he only lived in Palestine for a few months as a baby, he considers himself to be Palestinian.
"My parents always embedded in us that we are Palestinians, we’ll always be Palestinians, so my home has always been that virtual home, where my mum, my dad, my kids were learning to roll grape leaves with their grandma," Hadid, who has Jordanian and American citizenship, said.
Hadid also revealed he last visited Palestine "about three years ago", when he returned to his childhood home.
"I went to the same bed I was born in, my mother was born in that bed also. Hopefully I can take the kids there one day."
Gigi & Bella Speak As Proud Palestinians
Gigi Hadid has previously spoken out about being a proud Palestinian, and addressed the topic at a Reebok event in Sydney in November.
“When I shot the cover of Vogue Arabia, I wasn’t ‘Arab enough’ to be representing those girls, even though I’m half-Palestinian,” she said. “I’m as Palestinian as I am Dutch. Just because I have blonde hair, I still carry the value of my ancestors and I appreciate and respect that.”
Bella also revealed she was "proud to be a Muslim" in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s attempted 2017 travel bans.
“My dad was a refugee when he first came to America, so it’s actually very close to home for my sister and brother and me,” Bella told Porter magazine. “He was always religious, and he always prayed with us."
Obama On Progressive Ideological Purity
AOC has excerpted Gigi’s many interviews on her heritage and living in the relentless, public spotlight. When Gigi Hadid speaks of not being ‘Arab enough’, she’s addressing the progressive mentality that former President Obama referenced last weekend in Berlin.
“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States — maybe it’s true here as well — is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,’” Obama said. “And then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad’ where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues.”
The former president said he believes this approach “weakens” movements, and that those that would like to see a progressive agenda “have to recognize that the way we’ve structured democracy requires you to take into account people who don’t agree with you.”
I myself have dealt with this ideological purity over my blond hair. My jaw dropped when my own progressive credentials were attacked by known to me FB friends for wearing hair that supports Nazis. Many US progressives do not want blonds in their camp.
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