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Adidas says it will sell off Yeezy shoes and donate proceeds to those ‘hurt by Kanye’s statements’
(JTA) – The sportswear giant Adidas has decided to sell off its remaining inventory of sneakers from Kanye West’s Yeezy brand and donate the proceeds to charity.
The decision comes roughly seven months after Adidas cut ties with West in the face of mounting pressure due to his stream of antisemitic comments. Adidas’ sales of the rapper’s sneakers had accounted for 10% of the company’s annual revenue last year, or roughly $2 billion. That decision left Adidas with $1.3 billion of unsold Yeezy inventory in its possession.
During the company’s annual shareholders meeting on Thursday in Germany, where Adidas is based, CEO Bjørn Gulden pledged that the money would go “to the organizations that are helping us and that were also hurt by Kanye’s statements.”
Gulden did not elaborate on which organizations the proceeds would be directed to, nor if any of them would go to Jewish or anti-hate groups. In response to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment, Adidas shared Gulden’s comments from the board meeting but did not say which charities it would be donating Yeezy sales to.
Jews were the target of West’s comments last fall. West, who now goes by Ye, promised to “go death con 3 on Jewish people,” professed admiration for Hitler and bragged that he could say antisemitic comments and Adidas would not drop him. In November, the rapper dined with former President Donald Trump and Nick Fuentes, a prominent antisemite, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Following his comments, statements such as “Kanye Was Right” became a rallying cry for antisemites. According to the Anti-Defamation League, 59 antisemitic incidents that took place from October 11 through the end of 2022 directly referenced West.
Shortly after dropping West, Adidas — which was founded by Nazi Party members — announced a $1 million, four-year partnership with the ADL designed to educate athletes about antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.
The ADL praised Adidas’ plans but told JTA that the company hasn’t said if the ADL will receive a donation from the Yeezy sales. The organization added that it was not advising Adidas on where to direct the sale proceeds.
“This is a thoughtful and caring resolution for the unsold merchandise,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “Ye’s antisemitic remarks and abhorrent behavior have resulted in real-world acts of antisemitic hate. Any attempt to turn the consequences of his actions into something that ultimately benefits society and the people he has hurt is most welcome.”
Adidas had agonized for months over how to deal with the Yeezy merchandise, at one point considering simply burning it. That idea was nixed by Gulden on Thursday. “Burning is not the solution,” he told shareholders.
But the company’s Yeezy woes aren’t over yet. Adidas still faces a lawsuit from investors who allege executives knew about West’s “extreme behavior” for years and didn’t end their partnership quickly enough. Last year, amid West’s antisemitic comments, reports emerged that West had openly admired Hitler for years and wanted to name one of his albums after him.
As for West himself, he recently announced that he no longer hated Jewish people after watching Jewish actor Jonah Hill in the 2012 comedy film “21 Jump Street.”
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Palestinian Authority TV Denies Holocaust for Second Time in a Month
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Two weeks ago, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that Palestinian Authority (PA) television hosted a journalist who insisted the gas chambers “narrative” could be dismissed with “very simple evidence.”
Now, PA TV has done it again. This time, the channel invited a Syrian journalist who said the war in Gaza is the “real” holocaust while the history of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews is a “game that Israel plays”:
Senior Syrian journalist Mustafa Al-Miqdad: “It is incumbent upon the Palestinians today and those who support them to show the extent of the holocaust and genocide that the Palestinians have experienced for two years and almost a month in the Gaza Strip …
[They] were subjected to this holocaust, the real one- Regarding the Holocaust of the Jews there are many question marks from the Westerners, and not from our side that we deny it. Even from the West in general there are many stories that refute the accuracy of the [Jewish] narrative even if they talk about part of it, they talk about this [lack of] accuracy. This is the game that Israel plays.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals, Nov. 16, 2025]
Antisemitism and demonization of the Jews constitute a core ideology of the Palestinian Authority and pave the way for it to incite and justify terror against Israelis. A key PA strategy towards this end is to delegitimize the Jewish people and their history, while replacing it with a fabricated story.
Whether denying Jewish history in the Land of Israel to brand Jews as “colonialists” — or denying and appropriating the Holocaust — official PA TV consistently broadcasts content designed to cultivate hatred of Jews and Israel.
It is difficult to comprehend how any Western government, particularly France with all that it went through in World War II, can still speak of the Palestinian Authority as reformed or of its chairman as “charting a course toward a horizon of peace” when PA media continues to broadcast shocking forms of Holocaust denial and appropriation.
Yet French President Macron and others insist on rewarding the Palestinians with a state governed by this very PA. Instead of demanding the most basic moral prerequisite for statehood — ending institutional antisemitism — Western leaders turn a blind eye.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.
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Norway Government Budget in Peril Over Oil, Wealth Fund’s Israel Investments
A general view shows Norway’s parliament in Oslo, Norway, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Little
Norway‘s Labour government failed to win backing for its 2026 draft budget by an end-November deadline but talks will resume in parliament to find a compromise over oil drilling and the wealth fund’s Israeli investments, a negotiator said on Monday.
The Norwegian parliament is due to vote on the budget on Friday, and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere could be forced to call a vote of confidence if no agreement is reached by then, putting his minority government on the line.
The Labour Party narrowly won a second term in a September election, but the result left it reliant on four small left-wing parties to pass the budget, with only two of those, the agrarian Centre Party and the far-left Red Party, agreeing so far.
“It is surprising this is happening so soon after the election,” Jonas Stein, a political scientist at UiT the Arctic University of Norway, told Reuters.
“The Greens in particular had promised during the election that they would back Stoere as prime minister and now he could fall two-to-three months after the election.”
The climate-focused Green Party, which wants a gradual phaseout of the oil industry by 2040, walked out, as did the Socialist Left over its objections to investments by Norway‘s sovereign wealth fund in Israel.
“We must continue our work to secure a majority for this budget by Friday,” parliament’s finance committee Chair Tuva Moflag of Labour told public broadcaster NRK on Monday.
Stoere has said that Norway, Europe’s biggest supplier of gas and a major oil producer, should continue to explore for hydrocarbons to sustain the country’s biggest industry.
The government also objects to demands that Norway‘s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund should divest from all Israeli firms, arguing that only companies involved in the alleged occupation of Palestinian territories should be excluded.
“Norwegian politics have become a bit more adversarial and a bit more polarized,” Johannes Bergh, a political scientist at the Oslo-based Institute for Social Research, told Reuters.
“It might be more comparable to what’s happening in countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, where the political landscape is very fragmented. It has become very fragmented here as well.”
Parliament is elected for a fixed four-year term, with the next vote due in 2029, making it difficult for parties on the right to challenge Stoere’s government. It is not possible to call early elections or dissolve parliament.
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South Koreans Arrested in Iran on Smuggling Charges, Seoul Says
People walk near a mural of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
South Korean nationals have been arrested in Iran on suspicion of smuggling, South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday, but declined to confirm the number of people arrested.
“Our diplomatic mission team in Iran has been communicating the matter with Iranian officials and will continue to provide necessary consular assistance to the Korean nationals,” the ministry said.
The ministry declined to confirm other details including their occupation or the exact nature of the charges.
Local Yonhap News separately reported two South Korean nationals were arrested, including one who works at a public institution.