PERHAPS it is an inevitability of closely following politics, but there are occasions when I have to stop, just for a moment, and check that something is really happening, that I am not an unwitting participant in some student revue skit. These past few days it has been the turn of beloved purveyors of underwear and ready-made sandwiches,
Last Wednesday, M&S began its Christmas advertising campaign in earnest by publishing a photograph of an outtake from one of its TV ads. This showed actress
Then the world seemed to lose its mind. The paper hats are green, red and silver, which are almost the same colours as the Palestinian flag. (Or the flag of
The advertisement was filmed in
August, so has no connection to the current conflict, but more plainly, some paper hats in traditional Christmas colours of red, green and silver have no connection with the Palestinian people. Red and green are colours traditionally associated with Jesus, while silver or white represent purity and light.
Any suggestion that the advertisement has political significance is nonsense, demonstrating credulous paranoia of a dauntingly high order. Setting aside the simple chronology that the filming took place in the summer, why on earth would a
Thankfully, the ASA showed no inclination to examine these absurd claims. Depressingly, however, M&S quickly withdrew the advert and apologised for "any unintentional hurt caused". It seems a cringingly complete capitulation to a tiny fringe of the bizarre, but, pragmatically, I can see why M&S has decided to back away from the argument rapidly, comprehensively and with contrition.
We know why
This inference ignores, wilfully, that
For knee-jerk anti-Semites it does not matter. M&S remains a Jewish enterprise. It bravely opened its first African branch in Tripoli in 2008, but the store was repeatedly harassed by the authorities. In 2014, anti-Israel protestors gathered outside the Marble Arch branch; just this summer, an agitator outside the store described it as "a symbol on our high streets of British collaboration with the racist, settler
Joining the dots is not hard. The current conflict in the
Minimal effort and this tiny thing, this time. If we all step back collectively its power is gone. But where is the red line? At what point will such a farrago represent a more plausible danger to free speech and thought, and the way our society stumbles forward? When do we say "enough"?
(c) 2023 City A.M., source