This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

One of Israel’s most prominent models has been criticised for appearing in an advert in which she rips off a face veil to the slogan “freedom is basic”.

The Israeli clothing brand Hoodies posted a video online this week that opens with a Hebrew caption reading “is Iran here?” while zoomed in on Bar Refaeli’s face, which is covered in a black niqab.

Refaeli, 33 – a former girlfriend of the actor Leonardo DiCaprio – is one of the world’s best-known models. She married the Israeli billionaire Adi Ezra in 2015.

On Facebook, Hoodies accompanied the advert with text asking if people felt their freedom was under threat.

Refaeli’s performance was criticised online as Islamophobic and anti-Iran, where that type of headscarf is rarely seen. Under Iranian law, women are required to cover their head, but millions ignore this by wearing loose veils.

The clothing company ran the advert on Monday and it was viewed 160,000 times on YouTube. Following the outrage, Hoodies posted another version in which the Iran reference was removed and other women, including the transgender actor Stav Strashko and Tahounia Rubel, an Ethiopian-Israeli model, also removed niqabs.

Another woman wearing a hijab and Hoodies sportswear was also added, although she did not remove her headscarf. Both videos received more dislikes than likes.

A commenter wrote: “Your idea of freedom is not the same as mine. I am free in my hijab. Just because I am fully clothed does not mean I [have been] forced.”

Nuseir Yassin, an Arab-Israeli video blogger who runs the Nas Daily online video show, described the advert as the “worst commercial ever”.

“It is not OK to disrespect an entire country, an entire gender, or an entire religion just to sell a T-shirt,” he said.

In a separate incident, local Israeli election campaign posters displayed by a Jewish nationalist party that showed a woman wearing a hijab were removed after causing an outcry. The text on the posters warned against marriage between Jews and Muslims. “Tomorrow it could be your daughter,” it said.

• This article was amended on 26 November 2018 to include Tahounia Rubel’s name.