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Sends Letter to Online Retailer Spreadshirt Inc.

B’nai B’rith International is again dismayed and appalled that online retailers are selling apparel that illustrate a false narrative of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
 
Amazon is currently selling t-shirts and sweatshirts by online retailers Spreadshirt Inc., City Shirts and others that use language such as “Free Palestine,” “Free Gaza” and “End Israeli Occupation,” and some shirts include an image of a raised fist in a call to arms.
 
We call on these companies to immediately discontinue the sale of these types of products, and instead, work to promote tolerance and diversity in place of violence and bigotry.
 
The Palestinian Authority has a long and well-known history of inciting and encouraging violence against Israel and Jews, such as paying stipends to imprisoned terrorists and to family members of suicide bombers. And, Hamas continues its daily call for the destruction of Israel. We ask how a t-shirt company can support such blatant hatred?
 
B’nai B’rith is pleased that Sears, which we also singled out for selling such misleading propaganda messages, has taken down its stock of “Free Palestine” apparel.
 
Additionally, B’nai B’rith sent a letter to Spreadshirt Inc. CEO and Managing Director Philip Rooke lambasting the company for promoting anti-Israel sentiment and noting the shirts are in violation of the company’s own ethics guidelines, which state: “Designs that overstep the bounds of good taste are taboo. Reasons for rejection may be related to content related to pornography, violence-glorification, discrimination, abuse of drugs or defamation. We are all for exercising the freedom of speech, but we reject any designs that deliberately attack groups of people with a specific mindset (religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, etc.).”
 
In their letter Saltzman and Mariaschin wrote: “We are shocked and disappointed by the politicization of the Spreadshirt brand in promoting and selling this line of apparel. This ploy is a gross exploitation of the retailer to promote a political agenda. It is failure of Spreadshirt to live up to its own code of ethics, which purports to reject designs with violence glorification and defamation as these items do.”

Click here to read the full letter.