Australian stationary retail chain Typo has removed the world globes with Palestine printed over the area of Israel from sale and online, The Australian Jewish News reported. Addressing its customers on its Facebook page, the company stated on Thursday: “We are reviewing processes around artwork selection. We never intended to offend anyone with this product and we are uninterested with any political commentary. We take on board your concern that some countries are represented in a key, and as a result we have decided to remove the globes from sale in-store and online and will halt all future production until our supplier can provide artwork that eliminates the need for a key entirely.”
On Monday, when the above effort didn’t seem to help, and the angry comments from Jewish customers were joined by enraged Macedonians who also found themselves globeless, the chain stated: “Typo is not removing any country from the globe. We made the decision to recall the current globes from sale as we are sourcing new artwork from our supplier that has every country marked on it but with no need for a key. All countries will remain on the map, the key will not. We never intended to offend anyone with this product.”
Earlier, a Typo spokesperson explained, “Due to the scale of the design, 13 countries, including Israel, are represented by a key.”
In other words, since the area in question is so small, the manufacturer had to decide which country name to include and which to merely note with a code number, and so they opted to code a country name in existence since 1948, entering instead a country in existence since never ever.
“The artwork for the globe was purchased from an official supplier approved to provide certified world maps for commercial purposes,” the same spokesperson added. “We have very stringent approval processes for such purchases and take these matters very seriously.”
Apparently, not, since company approved the printing of a fictitious name, invented in the early 20th century, over a name inscribed in billions of bibles around the globe (emphasis on “globe”) and referring to precisely that plot of land. That’s not very stringent at all, it’s not even a little bit stringent.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry executive director Peter Wertheim, who seems to possess the restraint powers of moth, suggested calmly that “from a purely practical viewpoint, Israel’s territory is greater in size than the Palestinian Territories and its name is shorter, which therefore makes it easier to fit ‘Israel’ in the space.” Now, that’s keeping calm!
B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich noted, “Sadly, it is becoming all too routine to find items that expunge Israel off the map or replace it with the yet-to-be-established state of Palestine.”