Virginia brow artist says a client kept steering talk toward Israel and 9/11. So she stopped mid-appointment and asked her to leave

The NerdStash reports that a brow artist in Virginia says she ended an appointment early after her client repeatedly brought up Israel and other political topics during the session. Fatana, who runs the business Karimi Brows and goes by @karimibrows on TikTok, has 25,000 followers and 906,500 likes on the platform. She posted a video explaining what happened and why she stopped the appointment.

According to Fatana, the client asked personal questions from the start, including where she was from. When Fatana said Afghanistan, the client told her she was writing a novel about the country. Fatana said she tried to steer the conversation back to eyebrows several times, but the client kept returning to the topic of Afghanistan.

Fatana said the conversation later moved into heavier territory, including discussion of 9/11 and who the United States should have invaded in response. She said this made her uncomfortable, so she tried to change the subject by asking about the client’s novel.

Conversation turns to a character in the client’s novel who is Israeli

Fatana said the client described her novel as being about a young Afghan Muslim boy and a young Israeli Jewish boy who both come to America and join the U.S. Army. Fatana said she responded that the concept sounded beautiful, “except for the Israeli part,” adding that she does not hide her views against Israel.

Fatana said the client then revealed she is Israeli American. Fatana said this did not initially change how she treated the client, since she said a person’s background does not affect how she views them. She noted that some Israelis do not support their government’s actions, so she gave the client the benefit of the doubt.

The conversation continued, and Fatana said the client made a comparison between Israeli men and Afghan men, describing Israeli men as more openly emotional. Fatana responded by saying the difference between an Afghan man and an Israeli man is that Afghan men are from Afghanistan, while Israeli men or their fathers or grandfathers often came from places like Brooklyn or Miami, adding that “Israel was born like yesterday.”

The client disagreed, saying Israelis have had ties to the land for thousands of years. Fatana said she responded that Jewish people have lived peacefully in the region for thousands of years, but that the land was Palestine. The client maintained that the land was always Israel. At that point, Fatana said she began taking off her gloves and decided to stop the appointment.

Fatana told the client she did not want to continue, saying, “If I wanted to get into politics, I would have ran for office. I do eyebrows.” She asked the client to leave and said she would not be doing her eyebrows that day or in the future. 

Disputes like this are not the only recent case where a service provider’s decision has drawn accusations of bias; two women in another incident said they were asked to leave a public restroom over makeup and questioned whether race played a role.

In the recorded portion of the video, the client accused Fatana of stealing her money, referring to a deposit she had made for the appointment. Fatana denied taking the money and pointed out that the client had signed a photo and video release form. The client said she believed they were having a good conversation about Afghanistan and said she did not bring up Israeli politics.

Fatana responded that she had posted on Instagram stating that if someone supports Israel, she is not interested in working with them, and pointed to a Free Palestine sticker in her studio. The client said she had not seen the Instagram post. Fatana told her, “But for me, Israel isn’t politics. There’s a genocide going on.” The client responded, “There’s not a genocide.”

Fatana said the disagreement might have gone differently if the client had acknowledged the situation in Gaza without agreeing on the word “genocide,” but said the client instead denied that a genocide was happening. 

She then asked the client to leave her office. The client said she would be contacting someone to get her deposit back. In a separate incident, a woman said she faced a similar dispute after an older couple threatened to call the police on her while she waited in a building lobby.

Fatana said that after she posted about the incident, the client sent threats, contacted her business email and phone repeatedly, and posted about her on social media. She asked her followers for support in response.

The comment section under Fatana’s video drew a large response, with many viewers siding with her. One comment, which received 130,200 likes, read, “I am convinced she came specifically to harass you.” 

Another commenter referenced Fatana’s remark about Israeli men during the appointment, writing, “you ate her up with ‘an Israeli man is either from Brooklyn or Miami or Eastern Europe.'”. A separate commenter accused the client of provoking the exchange on purpose, simply writing, “She planned to do that.”

Not all reactions focused on siding with Fatana over the client. One commenter, who said they are from Afghanistan, wrote, “I am from Afghanistan and I am with the girl from Israel.”