The Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), an anti-hate organisation in Australia, has strongly condemned the Australian online retailer Redbubble and Aussie division of the Etsy e-commerce website for selling a t-shirt that says "Make Israel Palestine Again". The ADC said Etsy also sells a t-shirt showing a map of Israel with the word Palestine written next to it. The organisation called on both websites to remove products that the ADC claims call for the destruction of Israel.
"What’s next, products that endorse the extermination of Jews around the world? These shirts, plainly and simply, call for the elimination of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state. Any product that explicitly promotes the destruction of a country which is home to nearly 50 per cent of the world’s Jews is antisemitism of the worst kind and is beyond the pale. And while people are free to produce such materials, Etsy and Redbubble should not provide a forum for anyone who is employing genocidal language targeting Jews. Clearly, these goods violate the community guidelines of both companies, especially Redbubble’s prohibition of 'work that glorifies or trivializes violence' and Etsy’s policy on 'Hate Items: Items that Promote, Support or Glorify Hatred'", said Dr Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the ADC.
Redbubble and Etsy have not commented on the issue. Last year, Redbubble, which allows independent designers and artists to sell their works on its website, came under fire for offering a range of items with a Zyklon B logo, a trade name for a cyanide-based pesticide that the Nazis used to kill millions of people in gas chambers. Following a complaint from anti-hate organisations, Redbubble removed all protects bearing the logo. Previously, the website was criticised for selling mini-skirts with the Arabic word for "Allah" and skirts featuring a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades. It started in 1947 when the United Nations approved a plan to split Palestine, inhabited by Arabs and Jews, into two separate states. The plan was accepted by Jewish leaders, but rejected by the Arab side. In 1948, after Israel was established as a state, a number of Arab countries decided to intervene and declared war on the country. In the ensuing conflict, Israel seized much of the land that belonged to the Palestinians. The conflict also resulted in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians being forced out of their homes.
In 1967, a number of Arab countries fought another war against Israel, which ended unsuccessfully for them, with Tel Aviv gaining military control over the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The international community has made numerous attempts to resolve the conflict, but they have so far all been unsuccessful. Most recently, the Trump administration proposed a peace agreement dubbed the "deal of the century", but it was rejected by the Palestinian leadership, which said the accord was too biased in favour of Israel.
