Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Photo: Wikipedia.

Mia Khalifa is the pseudonym for a recently retired Lebanese porn star. She attracted controversy and death threats when she wore a hijab in one of her adult movies while engaging in various “NSFW” acts.

Now, many Arab news sites  (including Al Quds al Arabi) are claiming that:

Khalifa is coming to Israel…at the invitation of Naftali Bennett…the “minister of the economy…because they are having an affair.”

All four of those representations are false. (Bennett is Education Minister, although he used to head the Economic Ministry.)

Other rumors connected the actress with the Mossad, claiming that she had converted to Judaism, or that, through her, Israel wanted to help destroy Arab morals.

Al Masdar, an Arabic site that was originally associated with The Israel Project, has fun demolishing all these rumors and making fun of Arab media for publishing and then embellishing the story.

Apparently, the source for the rumor of a link between Bennett and Khalifa was a satirical website, The Mideast Beast:

 Naftali Bennett…has called for a search for a star in the Jewish State after pictures and tweets of Middle Eastern porn star Mia Khalifa, born in neighbouring Lebanon, briefly topped social media searches last week.

Speaking to The Mideast Beast a spokesman for Bennett’s office stated, “having seen this travesty the minister is well aware of the economic damage that could be caused by people thinking that the hottest chicks come from Lebanon. Everybody knows the sweetest bodies in the Levant are to be found in Israel, and that Tel Aviv is party central here in the region,” he continued.

In order to reinforce this message the minister is launching a search for an Israeli porn star to rival Khalifa. “We are looking for a young professional who can outdo, outstretch, out-everything, this poor Lebanese imitation,” the spokesman stated. “Ideally they will be in the IDF because chicks with guns are always hot. They should also be extremely flexible and have an all-over tan,” he added.

It is a stretch to get from that article to the current rumor, but over the past year, the “story” has continued to spread.