Comeuppance for Refaeli after losing swimsuit cover

The publication this week of Sports Illustrated magazine's annual Swimsuit Issue has got a mixed response from Israel - partly because of its cover star, and partly because of an ill-judged spread in which a long-legged blonde leans seductively against a row of swastikas.

The cover girl is Brooklyn Decker (left), dressed only in a yellow bikini bottom. What's important is not that she's the wife of tennis ace Andy Roddick, but that she has ousted Israeli model Bar Refaeli, sometime girlfriend of actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Refaeli was last year's cover star, and according to one commentator, the magazine cruelly let her believe she would be this year's also - just to heighten the tension around its announcement.

The New York Daily News quotes an unnamed source as saying Refaeli, who is 25, turned up at the swimsuit issue's launch party shortly after learning the news with "a scowl on her face". The report goes on: "She wouldn't even look up for photographers who had been waiting for hours in the freezing cold outside. She even walked right by fans who were pleading for her to sign her past issues of Sports Illustrated."

But Refaeli's comeuppance has brought a certain amount of glee in Israel where she is well known for wangling her way out of military service, mandatory for all young Israelis. She achieved it by taking part in a sham marriage at the age of 18 - and many Israelis have never forgiven her, especially after an interview she gave last year where she ill-advisedly boasted: "I don't regret not enlisting, because it paid off big time... That's just the way it is, celebrities have other needs."

Israelis still choking over that comment will no doubt be delighted to hear that the tax authorities have just presented Refaeli with a huge demand for back taxes. They are not persuaded by the model's insistence that she be declared non-resident for tax purposes, saying the centre of her life is still Israel even if her company is registered in Singapore.

As for the swastikas, these show up in a photo of model Genevieve Morton (right) leaning against a World War II fighter plane in the Mojave desert. The plane is American, but features a row of swastikas representing the German planes its gunner shot down – just to the right of Morton's shapely hip.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has picked up on the story, but takes some consolation in revealing that the picture didn't make it to Sports Illustrated's print edition - though it does appear online. ·