‘I never felt threatened or in danger, just surprised, and disappointed,’ the customer said.
By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner
Amazon has suspended an employee who put a note that read “Death to Zionists” inside a book about Israel before it was sent to a customer.
“We have taken this issue very seriously and an employee has been suspended pending the outcome of our investigation,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Jewish Chronicle. “We have apologized to the impacted customer and author.”
Michael Sharp ordered a copy of Israelophobia: The Newest Version of the Oldest Hatred & What to Do About It, by Jake Wallis Simons, editor of The Jewish Chronicle, on Dec. 15 and received the book the next day.
“I took the book out of the packaging, and I think the edge of the note might have been protruding slightly and so the book naturally fell open on that page,” he told the Chronicle, adding that the note had the word “Zionists” misspelled. “It was a tiny scrap of paper, just a few centimeters long, ripped off from a larger piece, and inserted about halfway through the book.”
“I was just shocked, really,” Sharp said. “I never felt threatened or in danger, just surprised, and disappointed. A sad reflection of the situation we find ourselves living in.”
Sharp reported the incident to Amazon and the e-commerce giant offered him a £100 gift card, in addition to apologizing for the incident, the Chronicle reported.
Simons’ book, published earlier this year, traces the history of “Israelophobia” and the difference between criticism and hatred of the Jewish state. It “reveals why the Middle East’s only democracy … attracts such disproportionate levels of slander. Rather than defending Israel against all criticism, it argues for reasonable disagreement based on reality instead of bigotry,” according to the book’s description on Amazon.