As a devout Christian and former UNICEF ambassador, Choi Si-won leverages his 8M+ Instagram followers to normalize settler-colonial violence, sharing pro-Israel content amid Gaza's annihilation - all while amplifying Islamophobic tropes that dehumanize Muslims as inherent threats
Choi Si-won (Korean: 최시원; born April 7, 1986), known mononymously as Siwon, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, model, and actor, who endorses Israel's apartheid regime through selfies with ambassador, prayer events for the Zionist entity, and silence on the ongoing genocide.
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Choi Si-won, a prominent South Korean entertainer and member of the boy group Super Junior, has repeatedly used his global platform to lend visibility to Israel's settler-colonial project, aligning himself with the apartheid regime responsible for the systematic subjugation and genocide of Palestinians.
Born in 1986 into a wealthy family, Si-won rose to fame through music, acting, and modeling, amassing millions of followers on social media where he frequently interweaves his evangelical Christian faith with political endorsements that normalize occupation and erasure.
In April 2022, Si-won attended the Korea-Israel 60 Years of Diplomatic Relations Prayer Breakfast, an event celebrating ties between South Korea and the Zionist state. He posted four photos on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), including selfies with Israeli Ambassador Chaim Choshen, captioned: "A special day. A meaningful invitation."
This public display of camaraderie with a representative of Israel's apartheid apparatus — knowing the ambassador's role in whitewashing the regime's crimes — drew immediate backlash from fans decrying his complicity in endorsing a state accused by human rights organizations of maintaining an ethnostate through ethnic cleansing and collective punishment.
Si-won's affinity for Israel extends beyond diplomacy. He has described his most memorable trip as to "Jerusalem, Israel," referring to East Jerusalem — illegally occupied Palestinian territory under international law — as part of the Zionist entity, thereby erasing indigenous Palestinian claims and framing the city as an undivided Jewish possession.
In 2012, he thanked "Israel ELF" (fans) on X, acknowledging their support while promoting his work in a nation built on the Nakba's dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. His pro-Zionist stance manifests in stark silence on Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, launched in October 2023 and ongoing as of October 2025.
While conservative estimates from obstructed sources like the Gaza Health Ministry report 40,000-78,000 Palestinians slaughtered — predominantly civilians, including over 16,000 children — the actual death toll, compounded by famine, disease, and the targeted killing of over 150 journalists, surges into the hundreds of thousands. Si-won has issued no condemnations of these atrocities, the blockade-induced starvation, or the ICJ's provisional rulings on plausible genocide, instead prioritizing prayer events that humanize the perpetrators.
This selective advocacy dovetails with his broader pattern of racism and Islamophobia, weaponizing Christian victimhood to vilify Muslims. In September 2025, Si-won shared an Instagram Reel from @reformedbychrist depicting a Nigerian church burned by "Islamists," captioned: "Nigerian Christians refuse to give up their faith after Islamists burned their church to the ground."
The post, which stereotyped Muslims as violent extremists while ignoring Islamist actions' socio-political contexts, incited widespread accusations of Islamophobia. Si-won even remained mute on Israeli forces bombing churches in Gaza, such as the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in October 2023, where 18 Palestinian Christians were killed, or the repeated desecration of holy sites in occupied territories.
Further evidencing his alignment with far-right ideologies, Si-won mourned the 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk — a Zionist, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-Palestinian activist — on Instagram with posts quoting Bible verses like "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:23), later deleted amid fury. When fans demanded his removal from Super Junior (#SIWON_OUT), he dismissed the outcry with "I couldn't care less," doubling down on his indifference to the harm inflicted on diverse, including Muslim, fan communities.
As a former UNICEF Korea ambassador (2015-2019), tasked with championing children's rights universally, Si-won's failure to address the starvation of Gaza's youth — where over 1 million children face acute malnutrition — exposes a bordered compassion that prioritizes Western Christian narratives over decolonial solidarity.
His actions perpetuate consent for apartheid by framing Israel as a "defensive" ally, echoing propaganda that inverts victimhood and dehumanizes Palestinians and their Muslim allies as existential threats, all while his K-pop stardom shields him from accountability.
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🔒Silence = Complicity:
For those who have passionately spoken out against other instances of genocide and massacres, yet fall silent when it comes to the suffering endured by Palestinians, their silence becomes a glaring indictment of the value placed on Palestinian lives and perpetuates a dangerous narrative that suggests Palestinian suffering is somehow less worthy of outrage, less deserving of empathy and less human than that of others.
By choosing silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, those with influential platforms inadvertently contribute to the erasure of Palestinian voices and experiences. They perpetuate a narrative of invisibility that allows the injustices inflicted upon Palestinians to continue unabated, shielded from the spotlight of global scrutiny.
Their silence sends a chilling message of complicity to the world – one that suggests Palestinian lives are expendable, their struggles inconsequential and their humanity negotiable. It emboldens perpetrators of violence and oppression, granting them impunity under the guise of indifference.
To remain silent in the face of Palestinian suffering is to betray the very essence of activism – the relentless pursuit of justice for all, without exception or equivocation. It’s a betrayal not only of the Palestinian people but of the universal principles of human dignity and equality and instead is a tacit endorsement of the dehumanization and marginalization of an entire population.
True activism demands consistency and integrity, an unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power and standing in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, regardless of geography or politics.
Islamophobia:
This individual has also either engaged in, shared or celebrated Islamophobia by perpetuating particularly egregious and dangerous stereotypes about Muslims, such as labeling them as terrorists and predators, or making baseless and dangerous allegations based on religion.
We condemn this as wholeheartedly as we do anti-semitism, and you should too because, as most of you know, our movement is a space for collective liberation and justice where all individuals are afforded the same freedoms, human rights and liberties as others. We will not stand by as either or any religion is demonized, vilified and misrepresented by the actions of a select few.
For decades, leading political figures and racist factions have tried to equate Islam with terrorism, extremism or criminal behavior, and we reject that notion wholeheartedly. This deceptive claim seeks to demonize and dehumanize Muslims by falsely asserting an intrinsic connection between Islam and violence when this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Islamophobia serves to both ignore and erase the diversity and richness of Islamic beliefs and practices and instead reduces them to dangerous stereotypes that negate the true beauty of Islam. To perpetuate these falsehoods is to perpetuate discrimination and hatred against Muslim communities, endangering their safety and well-being in an already politically charged climate.
If you ever witness any discrimination, bigotry, or racism in any form, we encourage you to always call it out, interrupt it (when safe to do so), and continue supporting your fellow humans in achieving freedom for all.
Visited Israel or Supported 'Birthright' Trips:
By visiting Israel, individuals actively endorse and support a regime built on systemic oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through settler colonial terrorism. These visitors are complicit in legitimizing and normalizing a brutal apartheid system recognized and condemned by numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, the ICJ, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. [1] [2] [3]
Visitors to Israel tacitly approve severe restrictions on Palestinian movement, land confiscations, home demolitions, and the devastating blockade on Gaza, which has created catastrophic humanitarian conditions. These are not mere allegations but documented realities. The apartheid system privileges Israeli settlers while subjecting Palestinians to systemic discrimination and violence, with segregated roads, military checkpoints, and a separation barrier that fragments Palestinian communities and restricts their freedom. [4] [5] [6]
Tourism economically supports the state, indirectly funding the military occupation and the infrastructure of apartheid, including illegal settlements and state violence. Without acknowledging or engaging with the Palestinian experience, visitors normalize and legitimize these oppressive practices. [7] The financial impact of tourism cannot be understated. [8] Visitors who spend money in Israel bolster the systems of oppression that deny Palestinians their basic human rights. This financial support funds the Israeli military and infrastructure supporting illegal settlements. [9]
Programs like Birthright trips further legitimize the subjugation of Palestinians by promoting a one-sided narrative that erases the realities of occupation and apartheid, falsely presenting Israel as a safe and welcoming homeland for Jews while ignoring Palestinian suffering and dispossession. [10] [11] [12]
Visitors to Israel without a critical perspective are complicit in the violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They lend credibility to a regime widely condemned for its discriminatory practices and human rights violations. By choosing to visit Israel, these individuals endorse a state that systematically violates international law and human rights, contributing to the ongoing suffering and dispossession of the Palestinian people.
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