American sportswear manufacturer selling ‘settler uniforms’ in Jerusalem
UPDATE: Columbia Sportswear halts marketing to settlers
The Israeli franchisee of Columbia Sportswear, a large Portland-based manufacturer of outdoor clothing, with an impressive Corporate Social Responsibility portfolio and what appears to be a rather progressive domestic client base, ran the following ad in the November 27 edition of the Jerusalem Post’s Friday Magazine.
Note the description at the bottom “for active work in various regions, including outposts.” If we have any doubt what “outposts” the ad is referring to, see the same ad in Hebrew, which ran on the same day in the Friday Political Supplement of Makor Rishon, a right-wing weekly. 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.
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I’m sure it was an Israeli ad firm that wrote it. I wonder if “Columbia Central” had any idea it was even printed.
Thank you and your readers for bringing this advertisement to our attention and for voicing your concerns to us via this site and numerous e-mails.
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 take all customer feedback seriously and sincerely regret the offense inadvertently created by this ad.
Ron Parham
Sr. Director Investor Relations and Corporate Communications
Columbia Sportswear Company