The father of two young women filmed tearing down posters of Israeli child hostage posters while screaming ‘f***k Israel’ has insisted he raised ‘good girls’.
Sisters Aya and Dana were seen ripping up notices placed around Broadway and 79th Street on the Upper West Side, New York, this week.
They were confronted by passerby Marilyn Adler who was walking down the street with her two daughters. When Adler urged them to stop tearing the posters, the duo launched a torrent of abuse against them.
Footage shows one of the sisters yelling, ‘f***k you, f***k Israel’. The other woman said, ‘f***k you, b***h’.
‘They didn’t let me get a word out. They said it was Israeli propaganda. They said Israel made up the hostages with AI,’ Adler’s daughter, Melissa, told the New York Post.
‘I said, ‘Please have a conversation with me’. They wouldn’t stop screaming at me. They just cursed me out and screamed at me. I was just stunned.
‘They looked at me with eyes full of hatred. They hate me simply because I’m a Jew. They don’t even know me.’
Sisters Aya and Dana were seen tearing posters this week that were placed around Broadway and 79th Street on the Upper West Side in New York
They were confronted by a woman named Marilyn Adler who was walking down the street with her two daughters. When Adler urged them to stop tearing the posters, the duo launched a torrent of abuse against them
Footage shows one of the sisters yelling, ‘f***k you, f***k Israel’. The other woman said, ‘f***k you, b***h’
Adler phones 911 three times that day but cops failed to show at the scene.
After the video went viral on Twitter, father Hasan Bakaret, who immigrated from Lebanon to New York more than 35 years ago told the Post that he did not teach them about the religion aspect of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
‘Coming to America now, they are good girls. I used to teach them but never mentioned the religion. It’s not about Jewish and Muslim. It’s about land, power and who can control,’ he said.
‘And now my daughters are watching pictures of babies dying, buildings collapse on people. It does something.’
Bakaret told the publication that he spoke with his daughters after their confrontation. While he disapproved of their offensive language, he insisted that the pair are not anti-Semitic and that their actions were taken out of context.
He claims that Adler had provoked his daughters and that she had snatched a photo of a dead Palestinian baby from Aya’s hand.
‘I know my daughter shouldn’t curse F-words, but at the same time, I wanted to understand. They said ‘Dad, it’s not true what they are saying, it started this way and ended this way, but didn’t show why it happened’.
‘What happened in Manhattan with my daughters, I believe them. The lady provoked them, stole from their hand a picture of the baby and told her ‘this is going to keep happening to you as long as you support these people’.’
After the video went viral on Twitter, father Hasan Bakaret, who immigrated from Lebanon to New York more than 35 years ago told the Post that he did not teach them about the religion aspect of the Israel-Palestine conflict
This comes a week after a Brooklyn ‘magician’, Noah Schaffer was seen tearing down posters of Israeli child hostages and was then fired from his job by his Jewish father
His father Dr. Eric Schaffer issued an email to staff at Human Factors, the UX company he founded on Sunday, to tell staff Noah had been placed on immediate, unpaid leave for four months
Bakaret explained that his daughters experienced a traumatic incident during a visit to Lebanon, which coincided with the Israeli-Lebanese conflict of 2006. The girls were just six- and two-years-old at the time.
He believes that the incident caused an impression on them which is why they behaved as such.
This comes a week after a Brooklyn ‘magician’ who was seen tearing down posters of Israeli child hostages and was then fired from his job by his Jewish father.
Noah Schaffer, 41, was filmed laughing in the face of a distraught Jewish woman who confronted him and his wife, Kelly, at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The pair had been ripping down posters of Israel’s missing and murdered children after the October 7 Hamas attack.
His father Dr. Eric Schaffer issued an email to staff at Human Factors, the UX company he founded on Sunday, to tell staff Noah had been placed on immediate, unpaid leave for four months.
Noah had been working as an Executive Strategist for HFI, after previously working as a magician at the dinner show, A Taste of Magic.
‘As has been noted, Noah is my son. He is not an antisemite nor a supporter of Hamas. I can attest that he has not acted this way at any time during his whole life.
‘He now understands that his actions were reprehensible, he is deeply sorry and regretful,’ Eric Schaffer told staff.
Mayor Eric Adams has condemned poster-ripping, calling it ‘deeply misguided’.
‘Tearing down a poster of a hostage is a deeply misguided act of disrespect to victims of terrorism,’ Hizzoner said in a statement.