Bluey T-shirt removed from website after outrage

The “unauthorised” children’s shirt depicts the Bluey cast wearing Palestinian scarfs and sports the slogan “From the river to the sea Paelstine will be free!”

The “Freedom Fighter Bluey” T-shirt was being sold by Australian volunteer organisation Free Palestine Printing, The Australian reports.

The organisation said on their website that all profits would go “supporting Palestine”.

The BBC, who owns the global commercial rights to Bluey, said the T-shirt was a “counterfeit product”.

It was taken down on Monday afternoon.

A leading civil rights group fighting anti-Semitism claimed the print “exploited a much-loved Australian children’s icon” for a “warped … cause”.

Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dvir Abramovich said the product was “weaponising” kids to spread a “hateful agenda”.

“These agents of division are corrupting our children’s hearts and minds and are exploiting a much-loved Australian children’s icon that represents kindness, fun and innocence, for their warped, ugly cause,” he said.

It is not the first time Bluey has been dragged into the Israel Palestine conflict.

Last week an award-winning Aussie writer penned a strong take on the most popular episode of children’s television program Bluey.

In a new poem shared to Instagram, titled Bluey in the genocide, Muslim novelist Omar Sakr referred to ‘Cricket’, an episode in the show’s third season that centres around the Queensland family of cartoon dogs playing the backyard sport.

According to Sakr, the episode’s central theme of “sportsmanship” wasn’t the only takeaway for some viewers.

“We watch the cricket episode, All laconic drawls and summer Games, a dedicated pup learning To play while his father is away,” his poem reads.

“His name is Rusty, he’s a star At bat. My son laps it up, as do I Until the end; the scene shifts And there is the distant dad In combat fatigues, and I learn Even in this cartoon world There is a desert full of dogs Soldiers and guns, and somewhere Out of frame, Arabs being put down.”

In the comments of the poem, others agreed, writing they “remember that episode and feeling”.

“This. Even these little moments that our kids absorb can influence what they see as ‘okay’ or ‘normal’,” another commented.

“Will there be an episode of Rusty’s dad having ptsd for the things he’s done?”

A third said: “That ending hits like a truck.”