Last week we posted a Columbia Sportwear marketing campaign directed at Israeli settlers. Peter Miller, a member of the Portland-based organization Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights, took it upon himself to contact Columbia to voice his displeasure. To his surprise, Columbia responded the next day and announced they have decided to immediately discontinue the ad campaign.
Here are the emails:
Customer (Peter Miller) 12/02/2009 07:36 AM
December 2, 2009Dear Columbia Sportswear -
I have purchased your products for many years. I was dismayed to learn recently that your clothing was advertised in Israel as "Suitable for active work in various regions, including outposts." The word "outpost" is rather unique to Israel and it means a specific thing: an illegal settlement colony planted, against international law and in violation of Palestinian human rights, right in the middle of Palestinian land. Outposts are created by radical, right-wing Jewish Israeli settlers. Unfortunately, these settlers have the tacit and often explicit support of the Israeli government. The outposts are a direct violation of the fourth Geneva conventions as well as the so-called "road map to peace" and numerous other documents and declarations. The UN Security council calls the Israel’s settlements "a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention." And the outposts represent the vanguard of these settlements. The "active work" these settlers are engaged in is increasing Israel’s hold on Palestinian land, making future peace and a just resolution impossible. The "active work" is part of Israel’s setting up of an Apartheid system, ruling over the Palestinians who are crowded into smaller and smaller areas, who are separated from each other by Settler roads, separation walls, settlements, military checkpoints, and forbidden zones.
I sincerely hope that Columbia Sportswear is not in the business of supporting these outposts and I ask that you investigate how your products are being promoted in Israel. I ask that you not promote your products in this manner and that you not attempt to promote your products in support of illegal activities and human rights violations. I, for one, don’t want to be associated with "outposts." I do not wish to wear clothing if it is being promoted as being "suitable for active work" in "outposts".
I would be happy to discuss with you the issues involved with these outposts. I give you some background information below including a links to an article depicting the offensive ad.
Sincerely,
Peter Miller
"Israel’s settlements are on shaky ground"
International law mandates that they must be removed and that the Palestinians should be compensated for their losses.
By Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, from The LA Timeshttp://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/28/israels-settlements-are-shaky-ground
"Columbia Markets to the Active Settler on the Go"
The Hebrew translation of outposts there is "gvaot" (hills) a euphemism for the illegal outposts populated by the "hilltop youth", notorious for their violence against Palestinian civilians.
By Adam Horowitzhttp://mondoweiss.net/2009/11/columbia-sportswear-markets-to-the-active-settler-on-the-go.html
And Columbia Sportswear’s response:
Response 12/03/2009 04:20 PM
Thank you for bringing this advertisement to our attention and for sharing your concerns with us.We investigated and determined that neither the original Hebrew text of the ad created by our independent Israeli distributor, nor the erroneous English translation supplied by the newspaper, was submitted to or approved by Columbia Sportswear as called for by our standard practices.
Columbia Sportswear and our Israeli distributor have agreed to immediately and permanently discontinue the ad, as well as to reinforce our standard pre-approval practices pertaining to all marketing materials in order to avoid such unfortunate errors in the future.
We value your input and we take all customer feedback seriously. While we cannot always promise specific changes, we do consider and incorporate comments from customers like you when planning our marketing communications for the future.
Thank you for caring. We hope we can count on your ongoing support.
{ 22 comments }
Nobody wants to be associated even remotely with something that could be connected even tenuously to terrorism.
This is good. As someone who lives in the Pacific NW, and as someone who buys goods manufactured there (Pendleton wools, Columbia, Janzten (before it went under) and a few others this is a good sign. I just wrote to Columbia with a complaint, but if they are willing to behave themselves I will continue to buy their label.
Good for you Peter Miller, and you too, Postherd. I buy Columbia sportswear too. Bravo to Columbia!
It would be nice if Columbia went a step further and reconsidered doing business with a distributor who promotes such an ideology, but this is indeed better than simply ignoring the issue. Good work, Peter Miller!
I agree, and I think maybe Columbia still needs to feel some pressure because of this fiasco. I think people also need to keep a close eye on them and make sure they do make good on their promises.
This is the exact attitude which has fucked the Palestinians for the last 60 years. Its people representing them or their struggle that always wants more.
You can blame everything on the Israelis and I admit most of time they are fucking something up, but not every time. The Palestinians have missed opportunities for this exact reason, the people making their decisions and the people supporting them care more about retribution than they do about turning a new page for the Palestinians.
This is why the BDS and bi-national state is so frustrating. Its people 1/2 world away who are fighting for a cause which, just or not, is going to spoil yet another generation of Israelis and Palestinians, it will be the longest process to enact and will never be accepted by Israelis and probably never accepted by the International community.
When you are a million steps from justice and have taken one step, it is not “wanting more” to take more steps towards the goal.
“Wanting more” describes the Zionists, who take one Palestinian house or village and only want to expand further, until they have it all.
No I’m pretty sure what fucked the Palestinians over for sixty years were Eurocentric Zionists running them off their land with guns and bombs and pogroms and the like. You know — the Nakba, the apartheid, the imprisonments and tortures… all that stuff you deny and apologize for.
I don’t dispute that, but the damage is done. Get over it, accept the reality.
when did it stop? unfortunately only war can stop the pogroms, those cowards. The Zionists made so many wars and sufferance!!!!!!!
When people say Jews should “get over” the Holocaust, they tend to take offense.
Yonira? Get over the Holocaust. The damage was done, accept reality.
How did that feel, hmm?
I’m glad you agree that the Nakba happened. It’s a huge piece of common ground. However, the damage is still being done. If it were stopped, a lot more people would be willing to ‘get over it’ and accept the reality. I think many Palestinians would too, as long as their new reality included a viable state.
Of course there will be some who won’t get over it, but if just governance is established, i.e, not a corrupt quisling entity like the PA bought and paid for with American Zionist-arranged funding contingent on ‘good behavior’, then more people would come around at least to acquiescence, and social and political isolation of bitter-enders, a prerequisite to continuity of a cessation of violence, could begin. This may take a very long time, but the longer the occupation in all its manifestations continues, the longer it will take.
I’ll make a wild guess that the time scale for a potential normalization period is already around three generations. Do most Israelis want an Israeli people widely accepted as associated with a particular piece of land to be around for hundreds of years, in the sense that French are accepted as having a right to live in what we now call France, Spaniards in Spain, etc? Governments come and go, but peoples attached to a specific land area persist when their neighbors recognize their right to inhabit it. American largesse is not going to be around for hundreds of years.
There is now an Israeli people who live on a specific patch of land which almost the entire world, including most of the Arab world, is willing to recognize within the 1967 borders. There is some tipping point where Israelis should cease to expand and starting trying to come to a genuine accommodation with its neighbors.
The majority of Palestinians have been squeezed out from within the 1967 borders and West Bank residents are living what is essentially an archipelago of open air prisons connected by transit corridors controlled by the IDF. They have no other place to go, excepting another Nakba far larger than the first, and people in the rest of the world including the United States are increasingly taking note of what is really going on. There is a growing threat to perceptions of legitimacy of the Israeli government and the wisdom of supporting its establishment and existence. It would be tragic if Zionists let their colonial extremists go one hilltop too far.
The preceding post was meant to be a reply to yonira December 4, 2009 at 10:53 am.
Are you kidding me?: “This is the exact attitude which has fucked the Palestinians for the last 60 years. Its people representing them or their struggle that always wants more.”
67 borders, international jerusalem/holy sites, compensation for takings in ‘48 or right of return. Is that how you define ‘wanting more’?
While every darn day we see families evicted in east Jerusalem by Israel?
Repent, repent – the day of reckoning is coming!!! I can only fit ~4-5 of you in my basement
I’d say the fact that they said it wasn’t approved is a tacit admission that supporting settlement outposts in your ad slogans is beyond the pale for the company.
We’re never going to get a full on, “Yeah, sorry about supporting human rights abuses, we’ll stop” admission, from any company, ever–celebrate victories where we get them!
That was very nice work, Adam and Peter. Columbia is on my approved list, and they will get my business.
They make great hiking shorts. I’m glad I can still wear them in good conscience.
I’m just glad I can still fit into mine.
Good Job Peter,
I am glad to see this ad removed it was in poor taste.
For that tiny concession, good for Columbia. Interesting tale of two companies. Here Goldman Sachs arms itself against restless goyim:
Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=ahD2WoDAL9h0
This news about Columbia sportswear is almost too good to be true. They responded, undestood the situation, and did something about it? Most of all, I can’t believe they understood what it was about.
Good for the Northvest, too.
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