An Alexandria salon owner ended an Israeli American client’s appointment and asked her to leave mid-appointment after their conversation turned to Israel, according to a video recorded by the business owner.

In a video circulating online, Fatana Karimi, the owner of the permanent makeup studio Karimi in Alexandria, Virginia, can be seen telling the client to leave.

Jessica Walton was getting eyebrow work done on Aug. 13 when she mentioned her novel’s Israeli character to Karimi.

“I went to the salon yesterday to get my eyebrows done,” Walton wrote in an Aug. 15 Facebook post. “The esthetician turned out to be Afghan. I was delighted, since I just finished writing a novel based on true stories that is partly set in Afghanistan.”

Walton allegedly began talking about 9/11 and how the United States should never have invaded Afghanistan, according to an Aug. 14 video on Karimi’s Instagram.

“I try many times to bring the conversation back to eyebrows, but she keeps talking about Afghanistan,” Karimi said in the video.

Wanting to steer the conversation to something more neutral, Karimi said she asked Walton about her novel, which Walton said centers on an Israeli son of Jewish immigrants who befriends a Muslim Afghan refugee.

“I was like, ‘That’s so beautiful. Judaism is such a beautiful religion, like two very similar religions coming together and such brotherhood,’” Karimi recalled. “‘Everything is beautiful except for the Israeli part.’ I don’t hide the fact that I don’t support Israel and don’t like Israel.”

In her Facebook post, Walton said she told Karimi she went down a “rabbit hole” of research into Islam and Sufism to accurately depict the Muslim character, but it was easier to sketch the Israeli character because she is Jewish and half-Israeli herself.

Karimi said Walton’s Israeli American identity gave her a “bad vibe,” but she was willing to give Walton the benefit of the doubt: “I don’t know where you stand [on the Israeli government].”

The business owner added that her clients’ ethnicity doesn’t matter to her.

She said Walton continued on the topic, comparing Israeli men and Afghan men culturally.

“So I said, ‘I think the difference between an Israeli man and an Afghan man is that an Afghan man was raised in Afghanistan and he’s from Afghanistan, and then an Israeli man, he’s either from Brooklyn or Miami or Eastern Europe, or his dad is, or his grandpa is, and that’s kind of where it stops because Israel was born like yesterday,’” Karimi said.

Walton disputed that characterization, noting Israelis have lived there for thousands of years.

Karimi countered they were “Jewish people who have lived peacefully for thousands of years … in Palestine.”

When the conversation became an argument, Karimi said that’s when she took off her gloves and asked Walton to leave.

“When you keep saying things like, ‘I’m Israeli American,’ and I’m saying things like, ‘I don’t believe in Israel,’ and you’re defending it — which is totally fine; you can defend it as much as you want — but this is my business,” Karimi said she told Walton.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t say anything political,” Walton can be heard saying in the footage. “I just told you that I’m from Israel … I didn’t speak politics at all about Israel.”

“‘I can’t provide service to an Israeli. It’s against my political beliefs. You need to leave immediately,’” Walton said Karimi told her.

Walton asked for her deposit back, and Karimi initially refused. Walton’s bank has since returned the deposit, according to Karimi.

“I had no idea you would do this based on my ethnicity,” Walton told Karimi during the confrontation.

“I left the salon completely shaken,” Walton wrote in a Facebook post. “I cried all the way home. I cried for my kids and the uncertainty of their future as Jews in the United States … We don’t deserve this.”

Commenters on a StopAntisemitism TikTok post labeled the incident a “civil rights violation” and “racism.” A third commenter called to shut down the business.

Karimi’s Instagram posts present a different side of the story.

“I told her multiple times … it was never about her nationality or ethnicity, because that’s illegal and I’m very polite with my clients. I would never [refuse service] to somebody for being of a certain nationality or ethnicity,” she said.

“During a recent appointment, a client repeatedly crossed professional boundaries by forcing heavy political debates, denying ongoing human rights crises and making targeted comments about my culture and my heritage — despite multiple polite reminders to keep the conversation neutral,” Karimi wrote in a TikTok post. “To protect the integrity of my space and my own well-being, I made the firm decision to end the appointment early and ask her to leave.”

StopAntisemitism posted a video of the confrontation, encouraging attorneys to contact the advocacy organization to support Walton.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington responded to the incident on Aug. 20.

Vicki Fishman, JCRC’s director of Virginia government and community relations, said in a statement that there is “no justification whatsoever” for Karimi’s behavior, which she called “discrimination in its purest form.”

“JCRC is ready to sit down with Ms. Karimi to help her understand the pain that her words and actions caused, both to her customer and the local Jewish community,” Fishman wrote. “But unless and until she demonstrates true remorse and makes meaningful amends, we urge Virginians to spend their hard-earned dollars elsewhere.”

Walton and Karimi did not respond to a request for comment.

zbell@midatlanticmedia.com