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YSL Criticized for Featuring Palestinian Rapper, ‘Vile Antisemite’ Saint Levant in New Campaign
Saint Levant in the new YSL video campaign for “Saint Laurent Sushi Park Paris.” Photo: Screenshot
The French luxury fashion house Saint Laurent (YSL) is facing backlash for featuring Palestinian rapper Saint Levant, who has expressed support for violence against Israelis, in a campaign that debuted on Monday for the brand’s new restaurant.
On Monday night, YSL premiered a new video campaign for “Saint Laurent Sushi Park Paris,” an omakase dining experience in Paris opening on Feb. 21 that YSL developed in collaboration with Chef Peter Park of Sushi Park in Los Angeles. The partnership marks the debut of Sushi Park’s first permanent location outside of Los Angeles. In the video campaign, Saint Levant, whose real name is Marwan Abdelhamid, acts as a driver that takes passengers, including Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon, to the new restaurant.
YSL posted the video on its social media accounts, and the comments sections quickly filled with pro-Israel supporters vowing to boycott the brand for featuring who they described as a known antisemite in its new campaign. Social media users shared the hashtag “boycottysl,” and the organization StopAntisemitism asked the brand “Saint Levant is a vile antisemite – why are you partnering with him?” On YSL’s X account, one user wrote, “what are you thinking? these are antisemites representing your company.”
“You guys partner with Jew haters?” said one X user. Another wrote, “ANTISEMITISM is the evil. Stop hatred!”
Saint Levant has French, Algerian, Palestinian, and Serbian roots. The 24-year-old was born in Jerusalem, grew up in the Gaza Strip, and moved to Amman, Jordan, at the age of seven. During a performance in November 2024 in Amsterdam, Saint Levant publicly applauded violent antisemitic attacks in the city that targeted fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. “Quick little shoutout to our Moroccan brothers for what they did the other day,” the rapper told the audience at his concert. “Because it’s not the first time that they come to a land that’s not theirs and start some s—t. So thank you for taking care of business.”
His comments were criticized by a pro-Israel supporter on TikTok who accused Saint Levant of promoting “gross anti-Jewish rhetoric.” The rapper responded by again repeating his support for the premeditated and coordinated attack against Israelis in Amsterdam. He told the pro-Israel activist, “keep crying,” and wrote, “Thank you Morocco.”
Last month, Saint Levant attended a fashion show for YSL’s men’s winter 2025 collection. In 2023, he was chosen as Dior’s first fragrance ambassador for the Middle East and in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar that year he said about his activism: “Everything I do is really focused and based on the Palestinian cause and struggle. It’s 80 years of occupation, oppression, displacement, and ethnic cleansing ”
YSL has previously collaborated with outspoken critics of Israel, including model Bella Hadid for its fall 2024 collection. Singer Dua Lipa, who has accused Israel of “genocide,” is the face of the YSL Beauty fragrance Libre Flowers & Flames, which launched in the summer of 2024, but she has also promoted other items for the brand.
The post YSL Criticized for Featuring Palestinian Rapper, ‘Vile Antisemite’ Saint Levant in New Campaign first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Egypt Demands Hamas Clarify Status of Hostages in Gaza
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
i24 News – Egypt has demanded from Hamas information about the status of the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, according to the Saudi channel Al-Hadath on Sunday.
“Hamas has informed the mediators that it is necessary to end the escalation to ensure the safety of the hostages,” the report said. Meanwhile, Israel has rejected any temporary ceasefire and demands resolving the issue of Hamas disarming.
Egyptian sources revealed to the London-based Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadid that Hamas’s proposal offers a release of all living hostages and the bodies of the slain, the announcement of a complete halt of hostilities, and a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave.
The plan would come with “clear and precise guarantees” from the US government, Egyptian and Qatari mediators, as well as Turkey. It includes a five-year calm period during which all restrictions concerning the reconstruction of Gaza would be lifted. A significant element of this proposal concerns the “use of resistance weapons.” According to Egyptian sources, Hamas would accept supervision and guarantees ensuring that Gaza’s armed organizations “will not use their weapons and will not rebuild their military infrastructure near the Israeli border, including offensive tunnels,” as long as Israel respects the terms of the agreement.
Israel, however, has rejected any proposal that does not stipulate the complete disarmament of the group.
The proposal also provides for Hamas to completely withdraw from the administration of Gaza, including its police. The management of the territory would be entrusted to an interim committee formed by Egypt, which would also oversee the training of security forces under this body. Regarding humanitarian aid, the discussions have explored several options, including distribution by an American security company or by tribal groups in Gaza not affiliated with Hamas or other armed organizations. A source within the Hamas leadership stressed that the organization’s “red lines” concern “handing over weapons and partial agreements, considered non-serious as they lack real guarantees.”
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Missle from Yemen Targets Dead Sea Area
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands in front of an F-35 stealth fighter at the IAF’s Nevatim base, July 9, 2019. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom / GPO.
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces said that a Houthi missile was intercepted outside of Israeli territory, although sirens blared in the eastern Negev and Dead Sea area. The Yemen-based, Iran-backed terrorist group said that they had targeted the Nevatim airbase.
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Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Iran and the United States have agreed to continue nuclear talks next week, both sides said on Saturday, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi voiced “extreme cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.
US President Donald Trump has signaled confidence in clinching a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held a third round of the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
“The negotiations are extremely serious and technical… there are still differences, both on major issues and on details,” Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
“There is seriousness and determination on both sides… However, our optimism about success of the talks remains extremely cautious.”
A senior US administration official described the talks as positive and productive, adding that both sides agreed to meet again in Europe “soon.”
“There is still much to do, but further progress was made on getting to a deal,” the official added.
Earlier Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi had said talks would continue next week, with another “high-level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3. Araqchi said Oman would announce the venue.
Ahead of the lead negotiators’ meeting, expert-level indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear deal.
“The presence of experts was beneficial … we will return to our capitals for further reviews to see how disagreements can be reduced,” Araqchi said.
An Iranian official, briefed about the talks, told Reuters earlier that the expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious.”
The only aim of these talks, Araqchi said, was “to build confidence about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.”
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran,” but he repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff began their latest indirect talks on Saturday, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion at the country’s Shahid Rajaee port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds.
MAXIMUM PRESSURE
While both Tehran and Washington have said they are set on pursuing diplomacy, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
Since 2019, Iran has breached the pact’s nuclear curbs including “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week Iran would have to entirely stop enriching uranium under a deal, and import any enriched uranium it needed to fuel its sole functioning atomic energy plant, Bushehr.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks.
Moreover, European states have suggested to US negotiators that a comprehensive deal should include limits preventing Iran from acquiring or finalizing the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.
Tehran insists its defense capabilities like its missile program are not negotiable.
An Iranian official with knowledge of the talks said on Friday that Tehran sees its missile program as a bigger obstacle in the talks.
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