The father of two young women caught tearing down Israeli child hostage posters while yelling “F–k Israel” on the Upper West Side on Tuesday defended his daughters as “good girls” and insisted the ongoing conflict in Israel is “not about Jewish and Muslim.”
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Hasan Bakaret said he’s always done his best to teach his girls right from wrong.
“That’s the way I was raised,” said Bakaret, a New Yorker who immigrated from Lebanon more than 35 years ago.
He talked about the tightrope he walked explaining the violent history between Israel and his native country when they were growing up.
“Coming to America now, they are good girls. I used to teach them but never mentioned the religion. It’s not about Jewish and Muslim. It’s about land, power and who can control,” he said.
“And now my daughters are watching pictures of babies dying, buildings collapse on people. It does something.”
Bakaret’s daughters Aya and Dana went viral after being spotted ripping down the posters from a storefront window at Broadway and 79th Street by Marilyn Adler, who confronted the women and filmed the encounter while out with her two adult daughters.
“We asked them not to take the posters down. They cursed at my daughter. I was terrified. I felt scared,” Adler told The Post, saying she was fearful the women might physically harm her daughters.
In the video, shared widely online by the nonprofit StopAntisemitism, Adler’s daughter Melissa pleaded with the women to stop, stressing that those pictured on the posters were “innocent civilians.”
In response, one of the women yelled “F–k you, f–k Israel.”
It was just the latest in a string of similar poster-ripping incidents throughout the city in recent weeks as Israel continues its counteroffensive against Hamas, who kidnapped more than 200 Israelis during a terror attack on Oct. 7.
Such episodes have grown so numerous as to prompt Mayor Eric Adams to weigh in condemning the practice.
“Tearing down a poster of a hostage is a deeply misguided act of disrespect to victims of terrorism,” the mayor said in a statement.
Bakaret said he spoke with his daughters after their confrontation became The Post’s front-page and although he disapproved of their offensive language, he insisted they are not anti-Semitic, and that their actions were taken out of context.
“I know my daughter shouldn’t curse F-words, but at the same time, I wanted to understand. They said ‘Dad, it’s not true what they are saying, it started this way and ended this way, but didn’t show why it happened.'”
Bakaret said his daughters claimed they had been provoked by Adler, 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 provoke them, stole from their hand a picture of the baby and told her ‘this is going to keep happening to you as long as you support these people.’”
Adler could not be immediately 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 which coincided with the Israeli-Lebanese conflict of 2006, when they were just six- and two-years-old.
The family was stuck at Bakaret’s parents’ house a short distance from the Israeli border, unable to flee “because [Israeli soldiers] were shooting any car, any movement,” he said.
After waiting it out for 10 days, Bakaret said the soldiers bombed the house next door with six women inside.
“Very bad picture for their age to remember,” he added.