Disney+ is facing claims of spreading anti-Israel ‘propaganda’ with a symbol shown on a teenage girl’s laptop in the entertainment giant’s Christmas advert.
Watermelons have been adopted as a pro-Palestine symbol and the new Disney+ commercial includes a fleeting glimpse of a watermelon sticker on a computer.
Disney has insisted it was a ‘random’ choice and no political messaging was meant – but critics insist the US firm has ‘serious questions to answer’.
The commercial, shared online last month after being made by London-based agency VCCP, is called A Lifetime of Stories.
The central figure in the ad is a young girl growing up watching Disney movies before having a daughter to shares her enthusiasm.
Not long into the 75-second advert, a girl is seen opening and then shutting a laptop while attending school – with two stickers shown, one of Mickey Mouse and the other a watermelon.
The fruit has been associated with the pro-Palestinian cause due to its colours resembling those of the state’s flag.
It has been used to represent Palestine since the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel banned flying the Palestinian flag in Gaza.
The new Disney+ advert including a watermelon sticker has prompted a backlash.
Former Tory chairman Richard Holden, MP for Basildon and Billericay and Conservative Friends of Israel supporter, told The Telegraph: ‘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, ex-UK special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, indicated he was ‘prepared to believe that Disney put this sticker in its advert at random’.
But he added: ‘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.
‘This is more than unfortunate and it wouldn’t take much to replace it with something else, like Donald Duck perhaps’.
A Disney+ spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘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.’
Meanwhile, police were accused earlier this week of operating a ‘two-tiered’ approach to demonstrations amid tensions over the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The criticisms came after a UKIP protest in a Muslim community was banned while pro-Palestine marches were allowed to take place in the wake of the Manchester synagogue attack.
A report by the think tank Policy Exchange claimed a suggested perception the Metropolitan Police treats protest groups differently was in fact a ‘reality’.
In one example cited, the force applied for ‘very stringent conditions’ on a UKIP march in Tower Hamlets on the grounds it had caused ‘significant concern’ among the Muslim community.
Under the Public Order Act, the Met banned UKIP from holding its protest in Whitechapel or anywhere else in the borough of Tower Hamlets on October 25.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestine protesters were allowed to gather in London both in the aftermath of the synagogue attack in September and on the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, terror attacks.
This was despite criticism from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who warned Britain had become ‘indifferent to antisemitism’.
Some Jewish leaders, as well as university chiefs and senior politicians, also voiced their dismay at the timing of the demonstrations and the fact they had been allowed to go ahead.
Referring to the banning of UKIP’s protest in Tower Hamlets on October 25, Policy Exchange’s report read: ‘Such a decision may well have been justified on the grounds of preventing serious public disorder.
‘However, the willingness of the police to impose such stringent restrictions to safeguard the local Muslim population, while apparently being unwilling to go similarly far on behalf of the Jewish community or the broader public at previous events, indicates a readiness among senior officers to apply different standards to different groups.
‘If the rationale for the force’s decision is because they feared public disorder from those resisting the protest it is tantamount to an admission that “mob-rule” has taken priority over the rule of law – an unacceptable state of affairs.’
The report also found: ‘Too often police choose to prioritise the rights and freedoms of protestors over the rights of ordinary people going about their daily lives.’
The organisation said officers were failing to arrest those committing criminal damage or shouting ‘jihad’ at pro-Palestinian rallies.
And despite the UKIP protest on October 25 being banned, masked Muslim protesters were allowed to take to the streets to ‘defend their communities’ the same day.
Videos shared on social media show young men dressed in black, with their hoods up and their faces covered, holding pro-Palestine flags.
Met Commander Hayley Sewart said: ‘Our New Met for London plan is delivering significant improvements on the issues that matter most to our communities and crime is falling across London.
‘Since April, offences like theft, robbery and vehicle crime are down nearly 15 per cent compared to the same period last year and officers are arresting around 1,000 more criminals every month.
‘At the same time, knife-enabled crime has reduced by 16 per cent and knife-enabled robbery by more than 23 per cent in the past year, and homicide in London is also at a 10-year low.
‘Despite a £260million funding gap and amid a shrinking Met, we are protecting neighbourhood policing, response policing and public protection so we can be there where and when the public needs us.’
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: ‘Nothing is more important to the Mayor than keeping London safe and he continues to lead the way by being tough on crime with a record £1.16billion support for the police this year alone and tough on the complex causes of crime through the country’s first Violence Reduction Unit which is leading an approach rooted in prevention and intervention.’
