Walmart Takes Heat Over IDF Soldier Costume for Halloween
Walmart is facing a backlash over an Israeli soldier costume on sale for Halloween.
The costume, which resembles a uniform worn by Israeli soldiers in elite combat units, is available on the discount department store chain’s website for $27.44, reduced from $57.62.
The Walmart Facebook page was flooded with criticism, including calls for a boycott of the chain.
One post called the costume “extremely offensive and highly insensitive, not only to the millions of Palestinian-Americans that shop in your stores, but to anyone who has an ounce of humanity in their bodies.”
On the Walmart site, under customer reviews, one commenter wrote, “Might as well sell a Hitler outfit for children as well! Pitiful!”
Another said: “Your little one can now go to his friend’s house, and take over their bedroom, and all of their toys and claim that God has given him/her the right to take it. If the friend refuses, your little IDF soldier can respond with force, and if they fight back, claim anti-Semitism, the right to defend their new room full of God given toys and level the whole family and neighborhood block!”
Walmart has not publicly responded.
A “Sheikh Fagin nose,” a latex prosthetic nose which the Walmart website deems “perfect for an Arab Sheik,” has likewise generated criticism for its name, the stereotypical greedy Jew in Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” the BBC reported.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
