HYBE America CEO Scooter Braun Slammed By Fans Over Instagram Post About Women In Gaza

They found the post Islamophobic and misogynistic.
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Serah S. Cherrie
Serah S. Cherrie

Content Warning

This article includes descriptions of graphic content and sexual assault that may disturb some readers.

Scooter Braun, the CEO of HYBE’s American subsidiary, has come under fire once again for an Instagram post that many netizens critiqued as perpetuating Islamophobic stereotypes.

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Scooter Braun | Rotten Tomatoes

In the wake of the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip by Israel, which the International Court of Justice has found a “plausible genocide” (according to a United Nations report), pro-Palestinian movements have also budded in the K-Pop fandom space. An intersection of the HYBE fandoms has spearheaded collective actions like promoting grassroots organizations that provide aid in Gaza and advocating for the rights of the persecuted population. Currently, this group of people is organizing efforts to push HYBE to remove Scooter Braun, owing to his staunch Zionist standpoint.

Fans have taken issue with Braun propagating dehumanizing narratives about Palestinian civilians and have constantly tried to have their voices heard by HYBE through efforts like trending the hashtag #HYBEDivestFromZionism, petitioning, organizing protest trucks, and even boycotts. But so far, the company has not responded to these demands, except for a brief statement through a third-party media outlet, which invited widespread criticism online.

Many believe that Braun has tacitly responded to this ongoing movement through different avenues, be it reaching out to fan accounts in person or making posts on his own account. One of his latest Instagram stories has offended a large section of the HYBE fanbases for perpetuating harmful stereotypes against Palestinian women. The story in question included a post from an Instagram account dedicated to “supporting Israel around the world,” which implied that women in Gaza are perpetually oppressed “under Hamas rule.”

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The post immediately attracted criticism that was multi-fold. Firstly, many felt that it portrays the stereotypical image of Muslim women being oppressed by their own faith for not meeting the Western standards of liberation.

Secondly, many found it disagreeable that Braun promoted a post that only weaponized the suffering of women in Gaza to perpetuate Zionism while altogether omitting the fact that those same women are subjugated to alarming humanitarian crises because of Israel’s ongoing blockade of aid into the Strip.

While the women’s rights situation is far from being utopian in Gaza, the post re-shared by Braun does appear to have some factual fallacies. Gaza does have laws for women, including legal provisions against rape. According to a 2019 report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), “Palestine unilaterally ratified CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) by Presidential Decree No. 19 of 2009. After the UN recognition of Palestine as a State, Palestine acceded to CEDAW in 2014. Palestine has entered no reservations to CEDAW.”

The same report mentions that there are legal prohibitions against rape, both in Gaza and the West Bank.

Rape is criminalized by Article 152 of the Criminal Code of 1936 in the Gaza Strip and Article 292 of the Penal Code of 1960 in the West Bank.

— UNDP

However, marital rape is not recognized as a crime in either territory.

Though abortion is prohibited in the West Bank by the Jordan Penal Code (Articles 321–325) and in Gaza by the Criminal Code of 1936 (Articles 175–177), in practice, authorities are said to allow abortions in the first four months of pregnancy in situations of rape or incest, or if the mother has a disability or her life is at risk.

Additionally, the Labour Law of 2000 prohibits discrimination between men and women in the workplace and protects a woman from being dismissed by her employer for taking maternity leave. Both these laws were mentioned to be functional in the 2019 UNDP report.

While these legal provisions might not see a perfect execution on the ground, many found it disingenuous to criticize Hamas when the post failed to acknowledge Israel’s public involvement in violence against women in Gaza, much of which is spread online by the state’s own soldiers. Women’s liberation, as pointed out by many of Braun’s critics, cannot come to fruition when the entire population of the Gaza Strip is fighting for mere survival in the face of disproportionate violence, sexual humiliation, and famine.

Additionally, multiple reports testify that Palestinian women’s rights are not safeguarded in the Israeli territories either, which begets the question of how valid Braun and the original poster’s criticism is.

Finally, many fans who got vocal against Scooter Braun’s post also highlighted that the post failed to acknowledge that Gaza is home to many female powerhouses, including heroes like Dr. Amira Al Asouli, journalists Hind Khoudary, Plestia Alaqad, and Bisan Owda, who are important representatives of Women’s History and their present in the region.

Source: Palestinian Labor Laws, OHCHR (1) and (2) and Gender Justice And The Law
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