Justin Bieber is receiving a barrage of criticism as he backtracks on his initial statement of “not choosing sides” and then sharing a post which was not properly researched.
On Wednesday, the musician, 29, took to his Instagram to post a Story with the words “Praying for Israel” overlayed on an image of ruined buildings in the Gaza Strip.
Within an hour, the pop star had deleted the post and reshared the message with the same wording but this time with no background.
The IG Story came a day after Bieber shared that he was “truly hurting” for both his “Israeli and Palestinian friends.”
“Im [sic] pretty sure we all instinctively know evil when we see it,” he wrote. “To vilianize [sic] all Palestinians or all Israeli people to me seems wrong. I’m not interested in choosing sides, but I am interested in standing with the families who have been brutally taken from us.”
Following the post, the singer was bashed for backtracking on his statement on Twitter.
Gigi and Bella Hadid's brother, Anwar also called out the singer for his post.
“I knew Justin Bieber was a f--king idiot when he was laughing at people fasting for Ramadan and saying that it’s not good for you because “our bodies need nutrition to think properly,” wrote one Twitter user.
Another wrote, “Just embarrassing. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, then don’t talk at all. And didn’t he say just yesterday that he wasn’t going to pick sides and look what he’s doing now… picking the wrong side while he’s at it too…. Smh”
One user shared that the celebrities are not sincere and only following a trend. “A reminder that celebs don’t care about you and would say anything just to hop on the bandwagon.”
“Giving me ‘idk whats going on but i just wanna be apart of it’ vibes [sic],” another tweeted.