In a TikTok video posted on August 26, user @changedbygrief described walking into her eyebrow appointment at Wow Brows, a beauty salon in Bay Harbor Islands, when she noticed a black visored cap with white lettering sitting atop a counter near the front of the shop. One clip she shared shows the hat visible from the street through the salon's front window.
"You guys, I'm shaking," she says at the beginning of the video, which had notched more than 400,000 views by Thursday afternoon. "I saw it and left. I cannot pay money and support a place that has this, that is publicly promoting this."
"That is so disturbing omg," one person commented.
"Dude the level of cruelty is insane," wrote another.
When New Times called the salon early on Thursday, August 28, a woman who answered the phone first said the business wouldn't comment on the situation. Moments later, she reconsidered and offered a brief statement.@changedbygrief This is shocking and deplorable and disgusting. Shame on you. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS. CHILDREN. #freepalestine #miamibeach #miami #florida #judaism #gaza ♬ original sound - Ariel’s life after TFMR
"Gaza should be flat, totally flat," the woman, who didn't identify herself, said. "Flatten all the tunnels. Give back the hostages. Rebuild Gaza, and let the Gazan people live in peace, finally. That’s all I can tell you. Thank you, and have a great day."
Meanwhile, dozens of people had flooded the salon's Yelp page with 1-star reviews, many referencing the hat. As of Thursday afternoon, the shop — which has a 4.6-star rating on Google — stood at 2.8 stars on Yelp. A note on the page indicated that the site had temporarily disabled reviews for the business as it investigates whether "the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events."
When New Times visited the salon late Thursday morning, the cap was nowhere to be seen.
When New Times visited the Miami Beach salon late Thursday morning, the hat was no longer on display.
New Times photo
Asked to clarify what the expression "Make Gaza Flat Again" means to her, she said she'd ordered the cap two days after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and that the hat had been on display in the shop ever since. "Nobody has said a word" of criticism prior to the TikToker's commentary, she told New Times.
"Honestly, I live in America, and I don't even think I need to justify myself," she said. "But I really do think that Gaza should be rebuilt. My hat means Gaza should be flat again: Let the 50 hostages out, set them free, get rid of all those tunnels — there are terror tunnels. Build Gaza again. Make it flat again, let the Palestinian people live in peace. They really deserve it. They've been taken by Hamas for so many years."
Asked whether she could see how the statement, "Make Gaza Flat Again," doesn't provide that context — and that to the contrary, it might be seen as calling for the genocide of Palestinians — Moskovitch said that was not her intention.
"Did I say, 'Make Gaza Flat Again With [Dead] People?' Did I say, 'Make Gaza Flat Again With [Dead] Babies?' 'Make Gaza Flat Again With All the Population There [Dead]?' No. 'Make Gaza Flat Again.'"
She said that not only had her hat not elicited condemnation among her clientele, but everyone seemed to understand its message. "I have Muslim clients that are my best clients! They saw this hat a thousand times, and they laugh, they don't even care!" she said, adding, "I should have sold them!"
Given the advent of the video and its aftermath, will she return the hat to its place on the shelf?
"I'm done with the hat," she told New Times.
The hat controversy comes amid heightened international attention on Gaza.
Ever since Hamas terrorists mounted their deadly October 7 raids, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 others hostage, Israel has bombarded the densely populated seaside strip. The ongoing siege has destroyed vast areas of the Gaza Strip, displaced roughly 90 percent of the population, and resulted in a humanitarian crisis for the area's more than 2 million Palestinian residents, nearly half of whom are children. The world's leading authority on food insecurity recently declared a famine in Gaza for the first time.
Meanwhile, some Israeli officials have publicly expressed the notion of "wiping out" Gaza. In May, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right minister of finance, said that a victory for Israel in Gaza would entail the Palestinian territory being "entirely destroyed."
"Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to...the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries," he said. The comments raised concerns about ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory.
Note: Additional reporting by Miami New Times editor Tom Finkel.
