Why do people focus so much on Bar Refaeli and not Gigi Hadid and her father?

[Sikeliot]

Gigi Hadid's father is full Palestinian... not Ashkenazi, but a Levantine Arab... and he looks French or northern Italian, if not even more north.

Why does this not surprise anyone? Not one of her relatives looks Palestinian.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/55f84c99dd0895353a8b467d/breakout-supermodel-gigi-hadids-dad-is-an-instagram-star.jpg
http://www.albawaba.com/sites/default/files/im/gigi-hadid-dad-sinblings.jpg
http://media.tmz.com/2015/12/15/1215-mohamed-hadid-gigi-bella-tmz-getty-02-1200x630.jpg

[Meerkat]

Even though Gigi herself is half Dutch, I agree with you overall. Every ethnicity has atypical people and it isn't that weird. And Gigi's dad isn't the only French-looking Palestinian out there; Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish looked Western European as well.

And keep in mind that unlike Palestinians, Ashkenazim are genetically equivalent to half North Italian half Lebanese (on an autosomal level--that doesn't mean that we are half descended from North Italians and half descended from Lebanese). Even the most northern looking Ashkenazim could usually pass for North Italian. Bar Rafaeli (who is actually half Italian Sephardi), Yitzhak Rabin and Michael Bolton could all pass for North Italian; they don't look strange or unusual given their genetics at all.

Edit: Though I want to add that Bar Rafaeli, Yitzhak Rabin and Michael Bolton still don't look typical for Ashkenazi Jews; they just don't look out of the ordinary given their genotype is what I'm saying.

[Sikeliot]

Even though Gigi herself is half Dutch, I agree with you overall. Every ethnicity has atypical people and it isn't that weird. And Gigi's dad isn't the only French-looking Palestinian out there; Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish looked Western European as well.

And keep in mind that unlike Palestinians, Ashkenazim are genetically equivalent to half North Italian half Lebanese (on an autosomal level--that doesn't mean that we are half descended from North Italians and half descended from Lebanese). Even the most northern looking Ashkenazim could usually pass for North Italian. Bar Rafaeli (who is actually half Italian Sephardi), Yitzhak Rabin and Michael Bolton could all pass for North Italian; they don't look strange or unusual given their genetics at all.

Edit: Though I want to add that Bar Rafaeli, Yitzhak Rabin and Michael Bolton still don't look typical for Ashkenazi Jews; they just don't look out of the ordinary given their genotype is what I'm saying.


But then how do you explain Palestinians who look like Northern Europeans?

[CommonSense]

But then how do you explain Palestinians who look like Northern Europeans?

Crusader influence

[Skye]

Gigi Hadid's father is full Palestinian... not Ashkenazi, but a Levantine Arab... and he looks French or northern Italian, if not even more north.

Why does this not surprise anyone? Not one of her relatives looks Palestinian.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/55f84c99dd0895353a8b467d/breakout-supermodel-gigi-hadids-dad-is-an-instagram-star.jpg
http://www.albawaba.com/sites/default/files/im/gigi-hadid-dad-sinblings.jpg
http://media.tmz.com/2015/12/15/1215-mohamed-hadid-gigi-bella-tmz-getty-02-1200x630.jpg

Her father's only half West Asian. Gigi showed her DNA results and she got 27% West Asian/North African. Making her dad at most 50-60% West Asian/North African. This doesn't surprise me one bit because People have been invaded, conquered and taken over all throughout history so who truly knows whats in our genes. Modern day Palestine was once part of the British empire, it was conquered by Romans and the French through the Crusader states. Plus through the Ottoman emprie I'm sure some Balkans and Greeks were sent there as well.

Many people have a narrow view of "whiteness". In USA, the US census considers all people regardless of their look to be "white" if you have roots from West Asia, Europe and North Africa. And many countries in the Caribbean and Central/South America considered their Arab immigrant populations to be "white" as well.

This gets more confusing because in the New World we consider "Asian" to be a "racial" category but not "African" or "European, even if Asia is considered a very diverse continent. Heck Gigi Hadid is half Asian (her father is from West Asia) and Bar Refaeli is literally "Asian" because she's from an Asian country (Israel) and her native tongue, Hebrew is an Asiatic language. But for some reason it's a big "controversy" to even bring up these facts.

[Bigsaul]

Bella Hadid looks clearly Levant influenced, ironically his dad doesn't. Gigi inherited her mother's phenotype. Bar R

[Meerkat]

Maybe her dad is part Bosnian. I read that some Bosnians settled the Levant during the Ottoman Empire and many Palestinians are descended from those Bosnians.

It annoys me that people focus too much on what Ashkenazim look like when some Palestinians look straight up European and some Palestinians look almost SSA influenced.