A growing number of Americans are donning the keffiyeh, the distinctive patterned scarf that’s closely linked with Palestinians, to demand a ceasefire to Israel’s attacks on Gaza or to signal their support for Palestinians, Reuters reports.
Sales of the scarves have jumped since the Israeli military offensive began in October, US distributors say, even as keffiyehs have been forcibly removed by security forces at some protests and wearers report being targeted for verbal and physical abuse.
“It was like a light switch. All of a sudden, we had hundreds of people on the website simultaneously and buying whatever they could,” said Azar Aghayev, the US distributor for Hirbawi, which opened in 1961 and is the only manufacturer of keffiyehs left in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“In two days, the stock that we had was just gone, and not just gone, it was oversold.”
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