The Chinese retail website Shein is causing a stir among Israeli surfers after Palestinian flags were offered for sale, while every attempt to find an Israeli flag was met with a broken link.
A search for the phrase Palestine flag on the website (Palestinian flag) led, among other things, to a page where the Palestinian flag appeared for sale for £4.25, which is now out of stock, and to another similar flag sold for 29 NIS.
Flag of Palestine for sale on Shine website / Screenshot
A search for the word Israel Flag led to a broken link, while a search for the word flag led to a page where one could find the Palestinian flag and flags or items of other countries but not of Israel.
Shine is considered a very popular site among Israeli consumers who were very outraged by the discovery and began flooding the Internet with calls to boycott the site.
"You support a terrorist organization that attacks my country, Israel. Hamas is worse than ISIS. We're going to stop buying from you," an angry follower on one of the site's biggest consumer Facebook groups shared in a message to customer service, expressing hope that she wasn't the only one and that they would be inundated with similar messages prompting them to remove the item.
"Those who support Hamas support terrorism. We won't buy more from you if you don't remove the flag and add an Israeli flag," she added.
Another user in another group reinforced the message and sent a strong message to customer service on the site, writing: "In light of the situation in Israel, it should be clear to everyone that the flag of Palestine symbolizes terrorism and is anti-Semitic. Since the site sells such a terrorist flag, I am deleting my account and I do not intend to purchase from you again and will recommend it to all Israelis and their supporters."
The pressure seems to have worked, and after a few hours the flags offered for sale were indeed removed with the search now leading to a page with a broken link. "We removed the item. Your help is important to our service. Thank you very much," the website wrote in a comment to the user.
Despite the removal, the very fact that the flag was uploaded to the site sparked angry reactions online from consumers who called for a boycott of the site, including Sarit Pollak, who wrote on her story on Sunday: "Don't start with me. In Shine they sold the Palestinian flag. In any case, their goods are equivalent to a poisonous man. Delete the app and don't order from there anymore, just like Chuck Buss (Pollack is referring to the story of actor Ed Westwick, who played Chuck Bass in the series "One Who Knows" and posted a very furry story about the war that managed to upset many of his Israeli fans.
This isn't the first time the site has offered problematic items for sale. In July 2020, a necklace with a swastika was offered for sale on the site, which was removed after user reviews, the brand clarified at the time that it was a Buddhist religious symbol and not the Nazi swastika.
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