Reports Surfacing Lebanese and Israeli media have documented what appears to be an online campaign against Pepsi in Lebanon, where an image of the company’s blue and white bottle cap has been condemned for being too similar to the Israeli flag.
Pepsi has become the latest American brand to face backlash in the Muslim-majority Middle East as the war between Hamas and Israel continues. While there are no indications that Pepsi has taken an active corporate stance to support Israel’s self-defense efforts, its Western identity has long drawn suspicion and in the past Falsely It has been identified as an “Israeli” company, joining other internationally recognized American brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, KFC and Starbucks in drawing the ire of Hamas supporters.
Lebanon 24 report On Friday, Israel announced that truckloads of Pepsi products had been banned in several towns, following an online campaign that included angry customers calling for a boycott and at least one video that appeared to show a group of young people dumping soda into the sea in protest against Israel’s ongoing self-defense operations against the Sunni jihadist terrorist group Hamas. The media claimed that at least four towns had blocked Pepsi shipments in “solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
“Pepsi has changed the caps on their bottles to the Israeli flag. I have never seen anything more despicable. But the worst thing is that we continue to buy their products,” Israeli media outlet Ynet reported. Quote Social media boycotters are saying.
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Lorien Le JourFrench-speaking Lebanese newspapers, report It was reported Friday that the controversy appears to have started when lawyer Ziad Jaafir filed a lawsuit against Pepsi on Wednesday, alleging that the logo on the company’s bottle cap is too similar to the Israeli flag. The bottle cap logo is white and blue, with the word “Pepsi” written in blue in the middle on a white background with blue stripes on either side. The logo does not appear on the sides of the bottle, which instead feature the traditional red, white and blue Pepsi logo.
Ja’afir reportedly “submitted a notice to the Beirut prosecutor’s office, requesting the Lebanese Modern Trading Company, PepsiCo’s bottling company in Lebanon, to stop using the logo because its colors and layout resemble those of the Israeli flag.”
Images of the Pepsi bottle caps in question began spreading on social media, primarily on the messaging app Whatsapp, and media were soon flooded with images of boycott activists appearing to dump Pepsi products or try to stop trucks bearing the Pepsi logo. One video shared by Israeli public broadcaster KAN shows a group of men dumping dozens of bottles of various sodas, apparently all Pepsi brands, on a beach.
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— Kan News (@kann_news) June 20, 2024
Other videos posted on social media showed Pepsi products strewn and dumped in the streets, causing public chaos in a country notoriously addicted to the product. Dysfunction Sanitary system.
Lorien Le Jour Pepsi reportedly changed its bottle design in March 2023, but the decision appears to have no obvious connection to the ongoing conflict in Hamas’ stronghold in the Gaza Strip. The current war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli residential areas and launched a campaign of mass murder, rape, and torture, killing an estimated 1,200 people and abducting another 250. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to this unprecedented attack with ongoing operations aimed at ensuring that Hamas is no longer capable of posing such a threat to the nation’s population.
Despite Hamas’ initiation of the war and its long-standing ideology of explicitly genocidal ideology, many in the Arab world oppose Israel’s measures, arguing that Israel’s operations are not directed at Hamas itself, but at Palestinians trapped under its control. The IDF operation has sparked months of protests and riots in neighboring countries, including Lebanon.
The Modern Lebanese Trading Company (SMLC), which sells Pepsi in Lebanon, issued In a statement on Friday, the company categorically denied that it was supporting “enemies of Israel”, claiming it had been the target of “baseless accusations” and insisted that it was supporting the country by employing local Lebanese residents.
The conflict between Hamas and Israel is of particular concern to Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah has backed Israel and fired hundreds of rockets into the country since October. Hezbollah wields outsized political power in poorly governed Lebanon, and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is widely believed to control many aspects of Lebanese political policy.
Speaking in June, Nasrallah claimed he had 100,000 terrorists ready to wage war against Lebanon’s neighbour and threatened to attack Israel again.
“The resistance’s manpower is unprecedented. We have recruited more than 100,000 fighters,” Nasrallah said. Claimed“The enemy knows very well that we are preparing for the worst and that no place will be safe from our rockets,” Iran’s state propaganda channel Press TV said.
The IDF confirmed Tuesday that it had approved “operational plans for attacks in Lebanon” if necessary.
