Activists are calling for a boycott of Adidas over its choice to collaborate with an Israeli involved in the war on Gaza [Getty]
Activists are urging a boycott of Adidas after the sports brand featured Israeli soldier Shaliv Biton in a new campaign to promote its Single Shoe service, with many highlighting that Biton took part in one of Israel’s many wars on Gaza, which have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The Single Shoe service allows customers who need only one shoe to purchase it at half price, rather than paying the full cost of a pair.
Biton lost a leg during Israel’s offensive in Gaza in 2021, when over 200 Palestinians were killed in the enclave, and scores of buildings were flattened.
The campaign has launched in stores globally, including in its Israel stores.
Footage shared on social media showed clips of promotional advertisements in the Adidas store in Israel, written in English and Hebrew.
“It may sound like a small thing, but to me it’s way beyond a shoe. It is the desire that the world we live in would sometimes adjust itself to us, and not always that we will have to adjust ourselves to it,” Biton wrote in a post on Instagram, promoting Adidas and his collaboration with the brand.
Biton has posted photos and videos of himself and other Israeli soldiers on Instagram in Gaza, singing and dancing. His social media profile also has images of him carrying arms.
Pro-Palestine organisations and activists have called for a boycott of the brand, noting that Biton should not have been used in the campaign, due to his involvement in the bombardment of Gaza.
Sports journalist Leyla Hamed said Adidas should have thought more carefully in their choice of representative.
“Gaza has the highest per capita rate of child amputees in the world. More than 5,000 traumatic limb amputations have been estimated since October 2023, as a result of Israeli attacks carried out by soldiers like the one Adidas chose to model for them,” she wrote on X.
US-based political commentator and activist Guy Christensen also commented, writing: “Actually disgusting when you know kids in Gaza who might not ever get to walk again”. He further called on others to boycott Adidas.
“The German sportswear brand Adidas is using Zionist war criminals from the “Israel” army, who lost a foot while invading Gaza, to promote their new single-foot sneakers. More than 4,000 Palestinian children have been amputated by “Israel’s” bombs, but Adidas and other millionaire multinationals ignore them,” another activist wrote on X.
Others said that Adidas had now associated itself with genocide and apartheid.
Earlier this year, the NGO Humanity & Inclusion reported that 70 to 80 percent of those being admitted to the 12 hospitals which were still partially functioning in Gaza had lost limbs or suffered spinal cord injuries.
In 2024, UNICEF estimated in January that around 1,000 children had lost one or both of their legs, equivalent to 10 children losing a limb every day in Israeli bombardments. That number is believed to be much higher currently.
Due to Israel’s ongoing blockade in the enclave, healthcare workers in Gaza have resorted to making homemade prosthetics as temporary aids to help amputees who have lost limbs in the war until they can access proper prosthetics.
