Tatreez is Not for Sale: Exposing the Lies Behind Resolute RGL’s Campaign
Photo Sources: [Upper photo] Per Amnesty article Israel/OPT: Masafer Yatta community in occupied West Bank under imminent threat of forcible transfer; [Other photos] Per Resolute RGL Kickstarter Campaign and LinkedIn profile.
Tatreez has never been just an art form…
It has been by us, for us—a practice of storytelling, resistance, and cultural survival. Each stitch embeds our history, our connection to the land, and our defiance against erasure.*
*I won’t go into all of the details, but for those who want a more deep-dive into the history of tatreez, see this blog post.
It is a language, a historical archive, and a declaration of identity. Palestinian women have stitched their stories into fabric for generations, preserving their connection to the land, their families, and their struggle for freedom. It was never meant to be commodified, scaled, or removed from the hands of those who created it.
And yet, here we are, watching as Tatreez is repackaged as a business opportunity—one that claims to uplift Palestinian women while reinforcing the very systems that oppress them. I’m talking about the Resolute RGL Kickstarter campaign.
Zionism’s New Tactic: Normalization Through Tatreez
Zionism has always adapted its strategies of oppression. As the world grows more aware of Palestinian struggles, it has pivoted from brute-force land theft and erasure to more insidious tactics—one of which is economic normalization.
The latest example? Resolute RGL, a so-called “empowerment” project that turns Tatreez into a scalable, industrialized commodity while keeping Palestinian women isolated from the broader Palestinian community.
This campaign, marketed as a Palestinian-led initiative for financial empowerment, is riddled with contradictions. One of its co-founders, Yossi Levin, has a documented history of erasing Palestinian identity, having launched 14 previous Kickstarter campaigns under his Israeli company, Nisnas Industries, where he deliberately avoided the word “Palestinian,” referring instead to the Palestinian residents of Wadi Nisnas as merely “Arabs.” This erasure extends beyond language—it is a deliberate pattern of obscuring Palestinian history and dispossession.
One of Levin’s past Kickstarter projects, 100 Rememory Tiles, is a striking example of this. The campaign described itself as an effort to “restore and bring to life a hidden story in the Middle East” by repurposing 100 ancient tiles, but nowhere did it acknowledge that these tiles were taken from what can only be ethnically cleansed Palestinian homes in Haifa. Instead, the project framed these remnants of Palestinian life as neutral artifacts, stripped of their true origin, and presented a distorted narrative of Haifa’s past—one where Palestinian dispossession was erased in favor of a vague, decontextualized history of “Arab, then Jewish memory of activism.” By stating that this memory was “wiped clean by the powers that be,” the campaign conveniently sidestepped the reality that it was the Zionist project itself that forcibly displaced Haifa’s Palestinian residents and stole their homes.
Now, with Resolute RGL, the same pattern continues—while claiming to focus on the Palestinian South Hebron Hills, the campaign description is carefully crafted to appeal to a global market without explicitly centering Palestinian identity. Instead, it presents its mission as a way to “bridge the gap between local and global” and build a “multi-million dollar brand” through fashion, reducing Tatreez to a commercial tool rather than a cultural and historical practice of resistance. Worse still, it operates within an Israeli economic framework, ensuring that any financial gains ultimately feed into Israel’s economy rather than advancing Palestinian sovereignty.
This is not liberation.
This is control, repackaged as opportunity.
You Can’t Scale Tatreez Without Exploitation
Tatreez was never meant to be mass-produced.
It is an intimate, painstaking practice, requiring patience, skill, and personal meaning.
To scale it, you must industrialize it. To industrialize it, you must exploit.
Tatreez, as a deeply rooted Palestinian tradition, is fundamentally antithetical to capitalism. It was never meant to serve as a marketing tool to "build, sustain, and grow a multi-million dollar brand," as Resolute RGL describes its goal. Co-opting Tatreez as a branding mechanism does not empower Palestinian women—it exploits their craft while feeding into the very imperial forces that occupied Palestinian land to begin with.
By attempting to scale Tatreez into a high-end product, this project directly contradicts its very essence. The meticulous hand-stitching that makes Tatreez so personal cannot be mass-produced without stripping it of its meaning. Yet, rather than acknowledging this reality, Resolute RGL attempts to package cultural resistance into a sellable product under the guise of empowerment. This is not empowerment—it is the commodification of heritage for profit.
Beyond the embroidery itself, there is a glaring lack of transparency in the production of these sneakers. Resolute RGL initially claimed to use Italian leather, but after public scrutiny, they quietly changed their Kickstarter description to say that the shoes are made in Portugal by "ethical, long-standing local artisans." This shift is telling—rather than openly addressing the concerns about sourcing and production, they altered their language mid-campaign, proving their willingness to change details in real time to appease critics rather than providing transparency from the start.
This raises even more questions:
If this project is about Palestinian economic independence, why is the entire shoe not being produced in Palestine?
Who exactly are these "local artisans" in Portugal, and why was their role in the production not disclosed from the beginning?
If their priority was truly Palestinian empowerment, why was outsourcing to Europe prioritized over supporting Palestinian leatherworkers and shoemakers?
Yossi Levin’s company, Nisnas Industries, has a long history of working with Italian leather and launching Kickstarters centered on leather goods. The lack of clear information about the shoe’s full supply chain, combined with Levin’s prior experience in European leather sourcing, strongly suggests that this decision was made not out of necessity, but convenience and profit optimization.
These omissions expose a harsh truth: Tatreez is being used as an aesthetic branding tool, while the core product—the leather shoe—is built through a supply chain that is disconnected from Palestinian economic empowerment.
Their live edits to the Kickstarter campaign prove exactly what critics have said all along—this project is built on deception, shifting its narrative in real time to avoid accountability.
This reinforces the reality that the artisans of Massafer Yatta are being positioned as laborers, not true stakeholders in the project. Without full transparency into who is making the shoe, where it is being made, and how much of the process is actually Palestinian-led, the claim of economic empowerment falls apart.
Tatreez is recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage—meaning it is valuable precisely because it cannot be separated from the people who practice it.
And yet, projects like this seek to do just that, feeding into an economic system that ultimately serves Israel’s economy while keeping Palestinian artisans at the bottom of the chain.
Who is Truly Benefiting From These Initiatives?
The key question is not whether Palestinian women are making money but whether they are truly being empowered. We must ask ourselves:
Are they able to keep their homes, or is this merely providing them with short-term wages while displacement continues?
Are they free to access their land and move freely, or are they stuck within the limits imposed on them?
Are they being given ownership of their craft, or are they being turned into laborers producing for someone else’s profit?
The most telling sign of all: When faced with critique, Resolute RGL responded with deflection and dishonesty rather than transparency and accountability.
Their public statement does not meaningfully address concerns about power imbalances, lack of financial transparency, or the erasure of Palestinian identity. Instead, they dismiss legitimate criticism as “misinformation” and accuse Palestinian voices of being “condescending” to the very women they are advocating for.
If their goal was truly to support Palestinian women, they would invite more Palestinians into the conversation—not silence those who question their model.
Instead of addressing the real issue—an Israeli co-founder profiting from Palestinian labor—they frame Levin as a non-Zionist activist and claim that Palestinian women “co-founded” the project, without explaining what that actually means in terms of ownership and control. They also conveniently left out financial transparency details in their original campaign, only revealing their profit distribution model after public backlash.
This is not accountability. This is damage control.
We Are at an Inflection Point—Which Side Are You On?
This moment is a turning point for the Tatreez community. Normalization is here, embedded in the very practice that was once a form of resistance. If you support Tatreez, you cannot sit in the middle. You are either part of the fight for true liberation, or you are enabling its exploitation.
Tatreez was never meant to be bought and sold in bulk. It was meant to be made, to be stitched with intention, and to be passed down through generations. The only way to truly reclaim it is to bring it back into Palestinian hands—not as a product, but as a practice.
Tatreez is resistance. It is storytelling. It is survival. And it cannot be co-opted by those who seek to profit from our traditions while sidestepping the brutal realities of occupation.
As Palestinians, as Tatreez practitioners, and as allies, we must be clear: we reject the co-opting of our heritage by Zionist projects. We refuse to let Tatreez become a tool for normalization.
We must fight for its preservation as a practice that belongs in the hands of Palestinians—stitched with our own stories, for our own survival, and as a form of resistance that cannot be bought, sold, or scaled by those complicit in our oppression.
Tatreez belongs to Palestinians. Not corporations. Not colonizers. Not opportunists. And we will keep it that way.
