Is Dunkin’ Donuts Supporting Terrorism?

By Ben

Dunkin’ Donuts pulled an advertisement featuring Rachel Ray this week when the scarf she was wearing caused a massive stir.

Critics complained that the black and white frayed scarf looked like a kaffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress – which some say symbolizes Muslim extremism and terrorism, according to the Boston Globe.

Little Green Footballs was the first to claim that Dunkin’ Donuts was promoting terrorism:

I didn’t believe this story when people first started emailing about it; but sure enough, it’s true. Dunkin Donuts, the venerable old fried dough seller, is the latest American firm to casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and the intifada, the kaffiyeh, via Rachael Ray: Dunkin’ Breakfast Choices.

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin quickly jumped on the news, focusing more on Rachel Ray then Dunkin’ Donuts:

It was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin’ Donuts spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company’s ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh.

The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons.

After taking the commercial down, many have come out against Malkin, arguing that those opposed to the commercial have gone overboard. BusinessWeek’s David Kiley had some harsh words for Malkin:

Dunkin’ Donuts has decided to pull an Internet ad featuring the compulsively perky Rachel Ray because a handful of blithering idiots said they objected to a scarf she was wearing; that the scarf resembles a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men that some associate with jihad. Where do I begin going into how utterly lame and stupid this is.

Do you think people are being too sensitive to Ray’s scarf?

2 comments May 30th, 2008