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NARR:
The picture on the website showed a young blond man wearing a military style jacket and the keffiyeh around his neck.
The text labeled the product as an anti-war woven scarf. That's a term Laila Al-Katani says just doesn't apply.
She's the spokeswoman for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, an advocacy group based in Washington.
ACT:
I don't agree with what they've labeled it or marketed it as. It doesn't have anything to do with anti-war. I don't see why they would be doing that. Some sort of marketing ploy.
NARR:
Marketing ploy or not, the scarf sold well… part of the military chic look Urban Outfitters has helped make popular in cities from London to Los Angeles.
The keffiyeh was originally used by Arab men to protect them against the brutal Middle Eastern sun.
It's most popular model: Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
He was often pictured wearing a Keffiyeh and - largely because of Arafat—the keffiyeh has become associated with the Palestinian cause.
But its political significance has been lost on some, like Columbia University junior Jared Drucker who bought his at Urban Outfitters over Christmas Break.
AMBI:
Sounds of the cafeteria
ACT:
I thought it was a little different looking. I saw a couple people wearing it and I liked it. So yeah.
NARR:
That's exactly what worried Nadeem Muaddi (moo-AH-di), a Palestinian blogger who writes for Kabob-fest dot com, which caters to Arab Americans.
ACT:
When I saw it marketed, mass production like that, I knew that people were going to start wearing the keffiyeh without knowing what the keffiyeh meant because the website wasn't telling people.
NARR:
The complaints by some in the *Jewish community was much angrier. They were upset not by the way the keffiyeh was marketed as an anti-war scarf, but by the fact that Urban Outfitters was selling it at all.
Beth Gottfried wrote about it on her blog.
ACT:
Look, this is a symbol of terrorist groups and especially in this post-September 11 world, seeing that and attaching significance to it in the way, I think it's offensive in that way.
NARR:
The Jerusalem Post has reported that the C.E.O. of Urban Outfitters e-mailed a pro-Israel activist who complained… saying that no one at his company meant to support terrorists and that they would stop selling the scarf.
A spokeswoman from Urban Outfitters declined to answer questions about whose complaints finally spurred them to pull the item.
But the company has posted a message for anyone who searches for the scarf on their website.
It reads—"Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale. We apologize if we offended anyone; this was by no means out intention."
Meanwhile, the scarf still sells at Urban Outfitters… in Europe.
Lily Jamali, Columbia Radio News.