TOGETHER WE STRONGER

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"Huda Beauty and retailers, Sephora and others included—should not platform or profit from figures who excuse, minimize, or indirectly endorse mass atrocities. I urge consumers and companies to hold public figures accountable: demand clear condemnation of state violence, transparency about the content they amplify, and, where appropriate, disassociate from those who enable or normalize gross human-rights abuses."

 

 

My name is Ayelet Friedberg. I’ve had the privilege of living in different locations in the world including  the United States  and Israel. I am grateful to God to have become self-made and self-sufficient without relying on other human beings. I have always been extremely active in helping people less fortunate than I am because I truly believe you rise by lifting others.

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I feel intensely passionate about injustice, abuse of power and profit over ethics

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Recently, Huda Kattan spread vicious lies accusing Israel of responsibility for World War I and World War II (even though Israel did not exist then). She went on to blame Israel for September 11 and October 7. I did not react even when she made comments about ICE and U.S. immigration policies either—comments that ignored American victims harmed by people in the country unlawfully. I didn’t hold a grudge; I didn’t buy her products, but I didn’t feel the need to act

To be clear why: Israel and the United States have laws, armies, police, and legal systems that protect their citizens; many citizens are also armed and self-defense is legal.

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Everything changed with the Persian massacre/genocide: 

The civilians were unarmed and abandoned by their government, utterly defenseless—their only weapon was extraordinary courage.

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Huda Kattan recent public statements and posts crossed a line. Most disturbingly, during the nationwide protests in Iran, she shared and amplified content sympathetic to the regime and failed to speak up for the unarmed protestors. It revealed a deeply endorsed narrative and hypocrisy that is hard to ignore. Those protests—ordinary citizens, including women and children, marching for rights and reforms—were met with extreme state violence. Independent reports and eyewitness accounts detail mass killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, and disappearances; conservative estimates speak of tens of thousands of dead and many more imprisoned or missing. The protesters were not combatants in an external war; they were civilians demanding change and were brutally suppressed by their own government. Huda’s silence on this, coupled with posts that amplified pro-regime material, felt like a defense or normalization of that brutality.

That was my turning point and the impetus to never let this die: win or lose but act.

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I no longer separate her beauty brand from the political and moral impact of her public influence. Beauty brands and retailers, Sephora and others included—should not platform or profit from figures who excuse, minimize, or indirectly endorse mass atrocities. I urge consumers and companies to hold public figures accountable: demand clear condemnation of state violence, transparency about the content they amplify, and, where appropriate, disassociate from those who enable or normalize gross human-rights abuses.