Why There Is A Row Over Mia Khalifa's Remark On Israel-Hamas War

Mia Khalifa, entrepreneur and former adult film actor, lost a couple of business deals after she tweeted her support for Palestine in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

"If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time," Ms Khalifa said in her tweet.

The former porn star was trolled on social media for another tweet which was called insensitive as hundreds were dying in the war.

“Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal,” Ms Khalifa said in a now-deleted tweet.

Ms Khalifa's posts sparked a wave of outrage on social media, resulting in her getting fired from both the adult magazine Playboy and a business deal with Canadian broadcaster and radio host Todd Shapiro. 

Playboy terminated their deal with Mia Khalifa denouncing her comments as "disgusting and reprehensible".

“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," the magazine said in a statement that was email to all its subscribers.

"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,” the magazine added.

Similarly, Todd Shapiro, who was in the final stages of a podcast deal with Mia Khalifa, promptly announced the termination of their arrangement in response to her statements.

Quoting Ms Khalifa's now-deleted post on X, Todd Shapiro wrote, “This is such a horrendous tweet @miakhalifa. Consider yourself fired effective immediately. Simply disgusting. Beyond disgusting. Please evolve and become a better human being. The fact you are condoning death, rape, beatings and hostage taking is truly gross. No words can explain your ignorance. We need humans to come together, especially in the face of tragedy. I pray for you to become a better person. However, it clearly seems like it's too late for you.”

However, Ms Khalifa, dismissing the firing, wrote in a separate post, “It's FREE PALESTINE until Palestine is FREE.”

She also said, “I'd say supporting Palestine has lost me business opportunities, but I'm more angry at myself for not checking whether or not I was entering into business with Zionists. My bad.” 

Ms Khalifa also praised the Palestinian militant group in a post that read, “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 they freed themselves from apartheid.”

The war escalated when the Hamas group launched 5,000 rockets at Israel from Gaza. Israel responded with air strikes and has started mobilising soldiers in preparation for the next phase of its retaliation.

The death count in Israel has surged above 1,200 from the worst attack in the country's history, while Gaza officials have reported 900 people killed so far. Israel's army also said it had recovered the bodies of around 1,500 Hamas operatives inside Israel. Hamas said late on Monday it was prepared to kill hostages that it had taken if Israel attacked.