QR Codes Promising Gifts to New Yorkers Redirect Shoppers to Images of Israel’s Genocide

Date: 25 December 2024 - 23:25

News ID: ۱۳۵۰۸۸

NEW YORK (Dispatches) – A group of activists in New York City spread the messages of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement during this holiday season, to remind shoppers of the Zionist regime’s ongoing war and destruction in Gaza.
In a video posted on the social media platform Instagram by the New Jersey Palestine Action channel, entitled “Tis the season to end genocide”, activists are seen hitting BDS target companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Zara with stickers across neighborhoods in Manhattan.
BDS is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. The movement takes its inspiration from the boycott movement against Apartheid South Africa and seeks to pressure the Zionist regime into ending its occupation and violations by peaceful means.
Activists caught the attention of shoppers with colorful stickers and coupon codes, offering discounts and free items.
But upon scanning the QR codes, customers are confronted with images from Gaza where the Zionist regime’s war continues to kill, starve and displace Palestinians, in a war that has been going on for over a year and a half and has been called a genocide by leading human rights organizations.
Activists hoped to remind people that these brands are complicit in Israel’s continuing war on the Palestinian enclave, and called on them to boycott the brands.
Activists end the video by calling for an “arms embargo, an end to the siege of Gaza and an end to the 76 years of displacement, occupation and apartheid in Palestine”.
“Americans, particularly in big cities like New York, are extremely tunnel-visioned and consumer-driven. It can feel like screaming into the void despite hundreds of demonstrations. This was an action that was designed to bring the genocide right to their periphery where they can’t avoid it: to the complicity corporations that they refuel from daily,” New Jersey Palestine Action said about the campaign.
“Everything we do is for those in Gaza. We want the Palestinian people to know we will never forget them,” the movement added.