‘McGenocide:’ Pro-Palestine activists in Madrid vandalize McDonald’s billboard

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Spanish pro-Palestine activists vandalized a massive McDonald’s billboard in Madrid so it called for a boycott of the popular fast-food chain.

“Now, yes: Boycott McDonald’s,” reads the vandalized billboard, in which activists covered some words of the original sign to change the message.

Then, after a long Palestinian flag blocking another word, it says: “Call me McGenocide ;)”

According to Spanish daily El Salto, police arrested five of the involved activists as soon as they finished the radical re-branding.

The action, carried out by members of Housing Unions and other groups, according to El Salto, aimed to show the complicity of McDonald’s in the Israeli war on Gaza.

In mid-October, McDonald’s Israel announced it would provide free meals to Israeli soldiers as they fought against Hamas.

This move outraged many Palestinian supporters, triggering calls for a McDonald’s boycott.

Earlier this month, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski told a conference call that the ongoing conflict is “weighing on its brand” and hurting sales in Muslim-majority countries.

“So long as this conflict, this war, is going on … we’re not expecting to see any significant improvement in this,” he added.

While the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement did not initiate the boycott calls against McDonald’s, in January it called for supporters to “escalate the boycott” against the company.

That’s because a McDonald’s franchise in Malaysia filed a lawsuit against activists, claiming defamation.

“Instead of holding the Israel franchisee to account for supporting genocide, we are now witnessing corporate bullying against activists,” wrote the BDS.

Other Western-identified fast food chains like Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Papa John’s have also become organic boycott targets.

Meanwhile, BDS has called for consumer boycotts against other popular brands such as Puma, Carrefour, HP, Siemens, Sodastream, Texaco, Chevron, Caltex and Axa due to their “proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.”