The Coca-Cola Company quietly removed references to its financial support for Black Lives Matter from its official website after the controversial group expressed support for Hamas terrorists who killed at least 1,400 Israeli soldiers and civilians earlier this month.
BLM’s Chicago chapter sparked outrage with a now-deleted post on X showing a photo of a paraglider with the text “I stand with Palestine.”
Hamas terrorists used paragliders to pour across the Israel-Gaza border and massacre scores of revelers at a trance music festival.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted Coca-Cola on his podcast last week, particularly after the soft drink giant touted its charitable donations to BLM on the company’s official website.
One of Coca-Cola’s brands, Sprite, gave half a million dollars to the Black Lives Matter Global Network as part of its “fight for racial justice.”
But the web site apparently scrubbed reference to BLM after Cruz’s criticism.
The Texas senator posted screenshots on his X account showing the before and after images of the web page.
“On Verdict, we name names and blast corporate America for standing with Marxists who celebrated Hamas’s mass murder of Israelis,” Cruz said in a post on X on Thursday.
The Post has sought comment from The Coca-Cola Company and BLM.
On October 11, in response to backlash over its post, BLM Chicago said in a statement: “Yesterday we sent out mss [messages] that we aren’t proud of. We stand with Palestine & the people who will do what they must to live free. Our hearts are with, the grieving mothers, those rescuing babies from rubble, who are in danger of being wiped out completely.”
In addition to the paragliders image, BLM Chicago also posted a number of cartoons depicting somebody expressing outrage over the attacks on Israel, while another calmly lists off talking points blaming Israel for the situation.
“This isn’t about Hamas — this is about Palestinians right to resist 75 years of Israeli settlers colonizing their native land,” one of the cartoons read.
The post of the paraglider was blistered by social media users.
“Unapologetically standing with butcherers and rapists,” author and former speechwriter Aviva Klompas tweeted.
“BLM Chicago, like many leftists, comes out in support of slaughtering innocent people they don’t like,” GOP commentator and former congressional candidate Robby Starbuck tweeted.
Fortune 500 companies like Amazon, Coca-Cola, Sprite, DoorDash, DropBox, Warner Brothers and Microsoft have donated to BLM in the wake of the May 2020 police-involved killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, in Minneapolis.
Additional Reporting By David Propper and Alex Oliveira
This story originally appeared on NYPost
