Fashion brand Zara has been forced to remove its advertisement campaign mocking the massacred Palestinian children amidst calls for a boycott. Zara, however, blamed its critics for wrongly interpreting its campaign and chose to remain silent on its Israeli design head Vanessa Perilman.
In its statement, Zara said, “After listening to comments regarding the latest Zara atelier campaign “The jacket”, we would like to share the following with our customers: The campaign, that was conceived in July and photographed in September, presents a series of images of unfinished sculptures in a sculptor’s studio and was created with the sole purpose of showcasing craftmade garments in an artistic context.
“Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created.”
Zara said it regretted ‘that misunderstanding and we reaffirm our deep respect towards everyone.’
Zara has been facing calls for a boycott of its brand globally after it launched an ad campaign to mock the massacres of Palestinian children by Israeli terrorists masquerading as soldiers. Contrary to Zara’s clarification, its ad campaign also had a map of Palestine.
There’s another sinister link to Zara’s controversial ad campaign mocking Palestinian children killed by Israeli terrorists and its Jewish head of design, Vanessa Perilman.
Not too long ago, Perilman was in the news for making disgusting comments about Palestinians. Responding to model Qaher Harhash, who is from East Jerusalem, Perilman had said, “Maybe if your people were educated then they wouldn’t blow up the hospitals.”
Writing to Harhash in a private conversation on Instagram, Perilman had said, “Israelis don’t teach children to hate nor throw stones at soldiers as your people do.”
Zara’s Israeli head of design did not stop here as she went berserk. She wrote, “I think it’s funny that you are a model because, in reality, that is against what the Muslim faith believes in and if you were to come out of the closet in any Muslim country, you would be stoned to death.”
Not to be lectured by a Zionist, Harhash had replied, “Does your little brain teach you about power dynamics and how this could possibly hurt me?”
The controversy had turned so nasty for Zara that it had to issue condemnation for Perilman. “We condemn these comments that do not reflect our core values of respect for one another, and we regret the offense that they have caused,” a statement from Zara had read.