Adidas faces boycott calls after featuring Israeli soldier in new campaign

Adidas is facing boycott calls after Israeli soldier Shaliv Biton was featured in the sportswear giant’s latest campaign for its Single Shoe service.

The service is aimed at people who need only one shoe, allowing them to buy a single shoe for half the price of a pair. Biton, who lost a leg during Israel’s war on Gaza in 2021, appears in the campaign being promoted at Adidas stores internationally, including its outlets in Israel.

Images and videos shared online show advertisements featuring Biton inside an Adidas store in Israel. The campaign material appears in both English and Hebrew. Biton also shared the campaign on Instagram, explaining why the service had personal significance for him.

“It may sound like a small thing, but to me it's way beyond a shoe,” he wrote. “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.”

His appearance in the campaign has drawn criticism from activists, who are calling for a boycott of Adidas over his military background and his participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In an X post, Activist and author Fatima Bhutto said: "Adidas not only will I never buy anything of yours ever again, my children won’t and their children won’t- if your disgusting genocide supporting company even lasts that long."

Tweet by fatima bhutto 🇵🇸🇱🇧🇮🇷

Sports journalist Leyla Hamed wrote on X, "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."

Tweet by Leyla Hamed

In another X post, she said: "Some may find the news that Adidas hired a former Israeli soldier for one of its recent campaigns shocking, but the brand has been telling us for a while where it stands. Adidas is also a sponsor of the ADL, one of the most prominent pro-Israel organisations in the world."

Tweet by Leyla Hamed