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News > Sport

This Racist Reebok Sneaker Symbolizes 'Ethnic Cleansing'

  • The Reebok shoe that has caused widespread discontent.

    The Reebok shoe that has caused widespread discontent. | Photo: Twitter

Published 11 May 2016
Opinion

A Palestinian activist said the sports shoe offended Palestinians by disregarding Israel’s historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Sportswear manufacturer Reebok announced Tuesday its decision to distance itself from what it described as a “terribly offensive” initiative to market a tennis shoe celebrating what Israel called its “Independence Day” sneaker.

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“Reebok would like to distance itself from the shoe,” the U.S.-based company told The Electronic Intifada. “The shoe was a one-off initiative from one of our consumers. We do not support this initiative.”

The shoe offended the Palestinian people and their supporters by sending a clear message of contempt and disregard to them over Israel’s historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing, occupation and other violations of their rights, Electronic Intifada said.

“Reebok has offended Palestinians and particularly millions of Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias and later Israel during the 1948 Nakba and are still being denied by Israel’s apartheid their right to return home,” Abdulrahman Abu Nahel explained. He is the director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee.

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On Monday, people went on social media to express their anger after plans to release the sneaker with “Israel 68” emblazoned on the heel were revealed, including an auction of the shoe through Reebok Israel’s Facebook page.

“Celebrating the destruction of Palestinian society and the uprooting of the majority of the Indigenous Palestinian people, as Reebok has done, must be among the most unethical, insensitive and irresponsible acts of complicity any corporation can do,” Abunahel stated.

Reebok Israel recently told The Jerusalem Post, “These sneakers were to be a one-time celebratory release as a collector’s item in Israel and the world.”

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