Can you spot the potential “Palestinian” symbol in this Disney Christmas ad?
No, that was Mickey Mouse and not his Hamas counterpart Farfur.
The answer, actually, is the watermelon on the girl’s laptop (from 0:12-0:19).
And it has caused quite the stink.
The streaming platform Disney+ has been accused of politicising its Christmas publicity campaign by including a pro-Palestine symbol in its adverts.
A sticker featuring a watermelon – which has for decades been used as a proxy for the Palestinian flag – is shown prominently on a laptop being used by a teenage girl in the advert.
Disney has insisted that the sticker was chosen randomly and is not a political statement, but politicians said the company had “serious questions to answer”.
It follows years of controversy at Disney over an alleged “woke agenda”, including transgender characters featuring in children’s films and a Snow White remake that replaced the seven dwarves with “magical creatures”.
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Watermelons and watermelon emojis are used as a shorthand for support for Palestine, because the colours of a slice of watermelon are the same as the colours of the Palestinian flag.
After the six-day war in 1967, Israel criminalised displays of the Palestinian flag, so Palestinians used the watermelon to circumvent the ban. The Israeli authorities responded by threatening to confiscate art which featured watermelons.
Since the Oct 7 terrorist attack in 2023 watermelon emojis have been politicised and used in pro-Palestinian protests. People who want to express solidarity with Palestinians use watermelon emojis online to get around algorithms that censor the word Palestine or the Palestinian flag.
Richard Holden, a Conservative MP and supporter of Conservative Friends of Israel, said: “Disney have some serious questions to answer here: either they have screwed up royally on quality control or the woke agenda runs so deep they don’t even notice when they’re spreading anti-Jewish propaganda.”
Lord Pickles, the former UK special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, said: “I am prepared to believe that Disney put this sticker in its advert at random but once that random choice had been made, surely, out of all the thousands of people Disney employs, someone could have pointed out that it was a deeply controversial thing to do, and given Disney’s appalling record of trying to push a social standard down people’s throats for years.
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A spokesman for Disney+ said: “The Disney+ Christmas advert celebrates Disney’s iconic heritage in storytelling and the enduring impact those stories have in people’s lives. The sticker shown in the advert was chosen randomly and is not a political statement.”
I don’t think the watermelon was an accident; it was a deliberate whisper, confirming that the “Woke agenda” has fully infiltrated every corner of the Kingdom. Disney has gone Woke, and that means anti-Israel.
At least they are more subtle than they used to be.
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