An article written by Bachelor finalist Ariel Frenkel was mysteriously taken down ahead of the premiere of the show’s 27th season, The Daily Beast has found.
The now-deleted op-ed, in which Frenkel called for more pro-Israel rallies in New York City in response to the 2014 war in Gaza, was published in June 2014 by The Algemeiner, a New York City-based newspaper that focuses on coverage of Israel, the Middle East, and Jewish news around the world. Screenshots of the article from the Internet Archive indicate that the piece was up on The Algemeiner website as recently as June 2022, roughly three months before filming for the 27th season of the show began.
Frenkel is one of the final four contestants on Zach Shallcross’ season of The Bachelor on ABC, the finale of which is set to premiere on March 15. The New York City marketing consultant has become a Bachelor Nation favorite on the season, with fans across social media calling for Frenkel to be chosen as the next star of The Bachelorette.
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In her piece, Frenkel included a quote that read: “The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.” The Bachelor contestant appears to have falsely attributed the quote to Israel’s fourth prime minister Golda Meir, when it was actually said by notorious Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2006 speech. (Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, returned to his position as prime minister in December of last year. It took him only months to plunge Israel into a judicial crisis.)
The Algemeiner did not respond to an inquiry from The Daily Beast by time of publication. When reached by phone, Frenkel declined to comment. Representatives from ABC, Disney, and Warner did not respond to comment requests.
Frenkel’s op-ed was pegged to Israel’s large-scale military assault on the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza, which was launched on July 8, 2014. Israeli defense forces killed some 2,250 Palestinians—the vast majority of whom were civilians—over the course of seven weeks, while 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed on the Israeli side. At the time, the Israeli government had claimed the operation was a response to rockets launched by Hamas into Israel.
The now 28-year-old Frenkel argued in her article that New Yorkers should “publicly stand in the streets of New York right now. We need to show our support for Israel with our voices as well as our actions, while showing our adversaries that we are organized and determined not to be silent… instead of letting the other side cram airwaves with their propaganda.”
“The vast majority of media outlets have demonized Israel for its recent actions. These actions were to defend itself against an enemy that has been threatening the lives of Israeli civilians for years,” she added.
The 50-day war Frenkel was addressing has been described by the United Nations agency UNRWA as a travesty for Palestinian citizens of Gaza.
“The scale of human loss, destruction, devastation and displacement caused by the 2014 conflict in Gaza – the third within seven years – was catastrophic, unprecedented and unparalleled,” the UN agency said, adding that the war “further eroded whatever resilience the people in Gaza still have left.”
