The Disney+ streaming media service is facing accusations of including anti-Israel messaging in its United Kingdom Christmas advertisement after a watermelon sticker appeared on a teenage girl’s laptop in the commercial.
The watermelon has become a pro-Palestinian symbol due to its colors resembling the Palestinian flag. The fruit has represented the Palestinian cause since Israel began banning the flag in the wake of the Six-Day War in 1967. The watermelon contains the same pan-Arab nationalistic colors as the Palestinian flag: red, green, white and black.
The 75-second advertisement, titled “A Lifetime of Stories,” briefly shows a laptop with two stickers—one of Mickey Mouse and another of a watermelon. The commercial was created by London-based agency VCCP and released in November.
Former Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden, MP for Basildon and Billericay and a Conservative Friends of Israel member, told The Telegraph that Disney has “serious questions to answer,” saying that “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, former U.K. special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, told the Daily Mail he was “prepared to believe” Disney chose the sticker randomly but questioned why no one among its thousands of employees flagged it as controversial.
A Disney+ spokesperson said the sticker “was chosen randomly and is not a political statement.” The company emphasized that the advertisement celebrates Disney’s storytelling heritage.
