The U.K. offices of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has apparently cut ties with a marketing manager who sold anti-Israel merchandise, a British pro-Israel group said Monday.
Muhammad Karim, who was described on LinkedIn as a marketing manager at UNICEF UK and was also listed in an organizational directory as a marketing specialist, was removed from the directory and dropped his UNICEF credentials from LinkedIn, according to UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).
UKLFI approached UNICEF UK on Aug. 9 about Karim following research by the antisemitism-monitoring group GnasherJew, the group told JNS. It linked Karim to an online shop called Solid Mujahid that sold T-shirts, hoodies, caps and other merchandise featuring anti-Israel imagery and slogans. The shop has since been taken offline.
One item flagged by UKLFI was a T-shirt depicting a watermelon throwing a lit firebomb at an Israeli tank. It was advertised as an “epic representation of resistance” against “the absolute worst of humanity, the IDF and its ilk,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Hoodies bearing the slogan “Death Death to the IDF,” caps displaying an inverted red triangle—a symbol Hamas’s propaganda department has used to denote the killing of Israelis—and a T-shirt showing a red triangle over an Israeli tank were also on sale.
One T-shirt promoted by Karim carried the names of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Ahmad Yassin, alongside other historical and political figures. Karim allegedly described those named as “Champions of truth throughout history,” while an accompanying promotional image showed a man holding a lit firebomb.
Another item featured the slogan “Punch a Zionist” above an image depicting a person carrying a Palestinian flag punching someone marked with an Israeli flag.
UKLFI alerted UNICEF to the possibility that the material violated the U.K. terrorism legislation.
The organization said it welcomed UNICEF UK’s rapid response.
The incident “demonstrated the importance of charities applying their codes of conduct consistently, particularly where employees are publicly associated with material appearing to celebrate violence or proscribed terrorist organizations,” according to UKLFI.
Following UKLFI’s intervention, Karim, using the handle Muhammad K., changed his title on LinkedIn to “Strategic Marketing Leader who thrives on Getting S**t Done.” He did not reply by time of publication to a request for comment on the allegations against him.
UNICEF UK Chief Executive Dr. Philip Goodwin told UKLFI: “We are aware of the serious allegations concerning this employee and took immediate action commensurate with the alleged conduct.” However, the organization declined to confirm it had fired Karim, citing its policy on privacy, which it said prevents it from commenting on the employment of third parties.
