Coca-Cola Israel Operates in Settlements and Produces Wines from Occupied Land

Coca-Cola Israel, the exclusive franchisee of the Coca-Cola Company in Israel, operates a regional distribution center and cooling houses in the Atarot Settlement Industrial Zone. Its subsidiary, Tabor Winery, produces wines from grapes sourced from vineyards located on occupied land in settlements in the West Bank and the Syrian Golan.

The International Court of Justice affirmed in July 2024 that Israel’s entire occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal, as are all Israeli settlements built on occupied land. As Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian and Syrian land are considered war crimes under international law, Coca-Cola is complicit in a war crime.

Corporations implicated in the commission of international crimes connected to Israel’s unlawful occupation, racial segregation, and apartheid regime—within or beyond the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967—are all complicit and must be held accountable. Direct complicity includes military, logistical, intelligence, financial, and infrastructure support. The corporations, as well as their boards of directors and executives, may face criminal liability for this complicity.

Local alternatives to Coca-Cola have been gaining market share worldwide, including in Palestine, China, Bangladesh, Sweden, Egypt, India, South Africa, Turkey, Lebanon, and elsewhere. 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, so why endorse the Coke boycott now?

Human rights and health activists, among many others, have been campaigning against Coca-Cola and similarly complicit corporations for decades, including grassroots drives targeting the company for its complicity in Israel’s gross violations of Palestinian human rights.

During Israel’s ongoing, livestreamed genocide, Israeli soldiers have often been pictured with Coke cans, donated to them by various genocide-enabling groups. This has provoked even more anger against the company, particularly given that Israel is starving 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip.

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