Unauthorised and misleading adverts with the message Boycott Coca-Cola will be removed by Transport for London from tube trains following a complaint by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).
The adverts, which may (or may not) have appeared across the London Underground network this week, display the message “Boycott Coca Cola” and feature images of either a boot stamping on a can, a hand crushing a can or a hand pouring away a bottle of coke. They also say “It’s canned on stolen land”.
This message is misleading in many ways, and likely to stir up hatred against Jews and Israelis.
Canned on Stolen Land??
UK Coca-Cola is not canned or bottled on stolen land. It is canned or bottled at several large plants operated by Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), in Wakefield (Europe’s largest soft drink factory), Sidcup, Edmonton, Milton Keynes, Morpeth, and East Kilbride.
If this campaign references a link to Israel, the licensee for Coca‑Cola in Israel is a private Israeli company, The Central Bottling Company (CBC). CBC’s bottling plant and headquarters are at Bnei Brak, which not in disputed territory but just outside Tel Aviv.
Bnei Brak was established in around 1924 by eight Polish Hasidic families led by Rabbi Yitzchok Gerstenkorn. The land was purchased by a Jewish organisation to found a religious agricultural moshav (village).
CBC also has a regional distribution centre and cooling-house in the Atarot Industrial Zone, on the north side of Jerusalem. In 2019 the industrial zone had 160 factories with 4,000 employees, three-quarters of whom were Palestinians.
The Atarot Industrial Zone is beyond the 1949 armistice line (“the green line”), in an area whose sovereignty is disputed. However, it is not stolen land. Most of the land in the area was purchased[1] by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in 1912 or 1922. In 1945, an estimated 433 dunams in the Atarot area were Jewish-owned and 68 dunams were public land. The area was seized and illegally occupied by Jordan in 1948, but captured or recaptured by Israel in 1967. Israel then incorporated Atarot within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, over which it claims sovereignty.
Are the adverts real?
The adverts have been widely shared online after PSC posted images across its social media channels, accompanied by a petition calling on consumers to boycott Coca-Cola products. PSC says the campaign is part of its broader effort to highlight corporate complicity in what it describes as Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.
It is currently unclear whether the posters have actually been installed, or are just images created by PSC, or staged photos on the tube.
UKLFI requested that TfL remove the adverts, if they have indeed been placed on the underground. TfL has now confirmed that they were unauthorised and will be removed.
TfL has clear rules prohibiting adverts that cause serious offence or promote contentious political messages. Its terms state that adverts would not be approved if: .
“they are likely to cause widespread or serious offence to reasonable members of the public …..” or
“they contain “images or messages which relate to matters of public controversy or sensitivity….”
A spokesperson for UK Lawyers for Israel said: “These advertisements are misleading and inflammatory. They present false claims about Coca-Cola’s operations and risk provoking hostility toward Jews and Israelis. If they were actually installed on the tube, we are pleased that they will be removed.”
[1] https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1649529