One Direction Goes in Two Directions over Israeli-Palestine Conflict

Being a member of a hit boy band will not insulate you from the backlash associated with expressing an opinion about the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis, as two members of One Direction just learned. Like most people, they have differing opinions about the crisis, but unlike most people, they are now receiving death threats from 13-year-old girls.

On one side, Zayn Malik, a member of the band who is half-Pakistani and was raised Muslim, tweeted this:

#FreePalestine.

— zaynmalik1D (@zaynmalik) July 28, 2014

According to the Jewish Chronicle, the tweet immediately inflamed many of Malik’s 13 million followers (“It broke me that one of my idols wants me to die”), while others praised him for his stance. Still, according to the NYDN, Malik received death threats telling him to “kill himself.”

But Malik wasn’t the only one who drew controversy: Harry Styles, who is not Jewish (but apparently has a predilection for being Jewish), began following an Israeli journalist on Twitter last week, and then also drew flack for that. One fan tweeted that he was “supporting Israel and their slaughter of innocent civilians.”

Remember, there are three other members of One Direction who have not yet expressed any opinions on the Israeli-Palestine conflict: Liam, Niall, and, uh, that other one.

[h/t Haaretz]
[Image via Andrea Raffin / Shutterstock.com]

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