#BoycottCoke! Coca Cola is now on the BDS priority list
JVL Introduction
Choosing boycott targets is crucial to making the Palestinian-led BDS movement as powerful and effective as possible. It’s not just a matter of refusing to have anything to do with any company or institution connected in any way with Israel’s apartheid regime. As many activists will know, trying to list all of them produces a daunting catalogue of potentially complicit businesses and organisations. This is why serious BDS campaigners in the UK take their lead from the BNC – the Palestinian BDS National Committee based in the West Bank – supported by UK solidarity groups such as PSC.
In the article below the BNC explains that “the BDS movement has always considered Coca-Cola boycottable but has not prioritized it as a target based on its careful and strategic target-selection criteria. This has changed now the local alternatives to Coca-Cola have been gaining market share across the world, including in Palestine, China, Bangladesh, Sweden, Egypt, India, South Africa, Turkey, Lebanon and elsewhere.”
Al-Jazeera reported at length on the arrival on the UK market of Gaza Cola, offering its drinkers an ‘apartheid-free’ alternative to big-name brands.
As Israel’s war on Palestine has ground relentlessly on, the growth of boycotts has become serious enough to the catch the attention of the Financial Times which carried an article in August saying: “From Egypt to Indonesia and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, consumers are shunning goods produced by companies such as Coca-Cola, KFC, Starbucks, Mondelez and Pizza Hut, in protest against their perceived support for Israel in the war in Gaza.”
It quoted a business leader operating across the Middle East and Kazakhstan saying: “This event is unprecedented. The length of this conflict is unprecedented. The intensity is unprecedented.”
NWI
This article was originally published by Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) on Wed 27 Nov 2024. Read the original here.
Coca-Cola: Quenching Israel’s genocidal soldiers’ thirst
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Coca-Cola has not crossed the Pedder threshold for at least 45 years now. Boycotting Coke to me is more than just boycotting it for Palestine – as important as that is. Boycott it for every evil that it stands for – the rapacious capitalist system, the symbol of US cultural hegemony across the world, the huge environmental damage involved and the multitude of health problems associated with drinking this vile drink.
Resolve will be tested when the Coca-Cola Christmas Truck starts to appear on our television screens.
First world problems, eh?