‘Merry Ham-mas’ bags pulled from Australian supermarkets
Australian store chain Kmart has taken a controversial Christmas-themed ham bag off the shelves after its name sparked anger for resembling militant group “Hamas”.
The bag to store ham for the Christmas season featured a punny message “Merry Ham-Mas” emblazoned on it and had instructions at the back.
The retail giant apologised and pulled the item from stores and its website after the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) issued a complaint to its parent company Wesfarmers.
The AJA said it had “politely suggested” Wesfarmers to take down the sale because of its resemblance to Hamas, which has been proscribed as a terrorist group in Australia and the US, among other countries.
The controversy blew up at a time when Israel continued to pound the Gaza Strip since last month after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on 7 October and killed 1400 people, taking 240 hostages. Israel has responded with airstrikes and launched a ground operation on the enclave that has claimed 10,000 Palestinian lives.
AJA said in a post on X on Wednesday: “Check out the special Christmas bag currently available via Kmart online. Yes, it’s real!!
“Although this is potentially funny (the AJA committee has tossed around some non-PC jokes) it’s really not a good look.
“We suspect some product manager may cause the company some embarrassment. So we’ve politely written to Wesfarmers corporate suggesting the product be pulled.”
K-MART STUFF-UP!
Check out the special Christmas bag currently available via K-Mart online. Yes, it's real!!
Although this is potentially funny (the AJA committee has tossed around some non-PC jokes) it's really not a good look.
We suspect some product manager may cause the… pic.twitter.com/vGswVvvNG6— Australian Jewish Association (@AustralianJA) November 8, 2023
Later, the association confirmed that it was contacted by the retail company’s "senior management" to confirm the bag was being removed from all stores.
Wesfarmers, the Perth-based group, issued an apology and said they didn’t think it through.
"We got it wrong on this occasion, and we apologise unreservedly,” a spokesperson said.
"When designing this product we clearly didn’t think through all the implications and the product has been removed from sale."