The father of two young women caught tearing down Israeli posters of hostage children while shouting “Fuck Israel” on the Upper West Side on Tuesday defended his daughters as “good girls” and insisted that the ongoing conflict in Israel “is not “It deals with Jews and Muslims.” .”
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Hasan Bakaret said he has always done his best to teach his daughters right from wrong.
“That’s how I was raised,” said Bakaret, a New Yorker who emigrated from Lebanon more than 35 years ago.
He spoke of the tightrope he walked explaining the violent history between Israel and his home country when they were children.
“Now that they come to the United States, they are good girls. I used to teach them but I never mentioned religion. It’s not about Jews and Muslims. It is about land, power and who can control it,” she stated.
“And now my daughters are seeing images of babies dying and buildings collapsing on people. Do something”.
One of two women caught tearing down Israeli hostage signs in Manhattan on Tuesday. Rita Panahi/X
Bakaret’s daughters, Aya and Dana, went viral after they were seen tearing down signs from a storefront on Broadway and 79th Street by Marilyn Adler, who confronted the women and filmed the encounter while she was with her two adult daughters.
“We asked them not to remove the signs. They cursed my daughter. He was terrified. I felt scared,” Adler told The Post, saying she feared the women would physically hurt her daughters.
In the video, shared widely online by the nonprofit. Stop antisemitismAdler’s daughter Melissa pleaded with the women to stop and emphasized that the people on the posters were “innocent civilians.”
In response, one of the women shouted: “Fuck you, fuck Israel.”
It was just the latest in a series of similar sign-smashing incidents across the city in recent weeks as Israel continues its counteroffensive against Hamas, which kidnapped more than 200 Israelis during a terrorist attack on October 7.
These episodes have become so numerous that they led Mayor Eric Adams to condemn the practice.
Hasan Bakaret, the women’s father, said he raised his daughters to be “good girls.” Twitter @ RitaPanahi Bakaret said that although her daughters were wrong to use bad words, they are not anti-Semitic. Rita Panahi/X
“Taking down a hostage sign is a deeply misguided act of disrespect toward the victims of terrorism,” the mayor said in a statement.
Bakaret said he spoke to his daughters after their confrontation became the Post’s cover, and while he disapproved of their offensive language, he insisted that they are not anti-Semitic and that their actions were taken out of context.
Marilyn Adler with her daughter Melissa Kaplan, who confronted Aya and Dana Baraket for tearing up the signs. Provided to the New York Post
“I know my daughter shouldn’t curse the F words, but at the same time I wanted to understand. They said ‘Dad, what they say is not true, it started like this and ended like this, but they didn’t show why it happened.’”
Bakaret said her daughters claimed Adler had provoked them and that she had snatched a photo of a dead Palestinian baby from Aya’s hand.
“What happened in Manhattan with my daughters, I believe them. The lady provoked them, she stole a photo of the baby from their hands and told her ‘this is going to continue happening to you as long as you support these people.’”
Adler could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
As for what may have motivated his daughters’ actions, Bakaret said they experienced a traumatic incident during a visit to Lebanon that coincided with the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese conflict, when they were just six and two years old.
The family was trapped in Bakaret’s parents’ house, a short distance from the Israeli border, unable to flee “because [Israeli soldiers] “They were shooting at any car, at any movement,” he said.
After waiting 10 days, Bakaret said soldiers bombed the house next door with six women inside.
“Very bad image for her age to remember her,” he added.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn