London bus stop ads changed in response to Jones Lang LaSalle’s ironic marketing slogan

Feb 18, 2021

  • Members of Palestine Action on Tuesday morning carried out five “ad-hacks” at bus stops located by three Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) offices in London
  • The real estate investment management company hosts the HQ offices of Elbit Systems in Holborn
  • The group have written to the company three times, doused its offices in blood-red paint seven times and even stormed its Soho office in broad daylight, covering the reception in paint and holding a protest outside

The bus stop ad replacements come after the company released an advertisement claiming to “take actions to protect our people and our planet”, with the slogan “What if a real estate company could help save the planet?”.

Satirising the company’s recent marketing ploy, the new posters show scenes from daily life in occupied Palestine including drone strikes in Gaza, heavily armed Israeli soldiers and the separation wall between the West Bank and Israel. They read “What if a real estate company could help test weapons on Palestinians?”, “What if a real estate company could profit from Palestinian blood?”, “What if a real estate company could enable Israel’s apartheid regime?”, “What if a real estate company could deal in illegal weapons?” and “What if a real estate company could harbour war criminals?”. Each slogan is accompanied by the JLL logo.

JLL is a real estate investment management company that has been target as it hosts the HQ offices of Elbit Systems in Holborn, London. Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest private arms manufacturer and provides the Israeli military with over 80% of its drone fleet, including the Hermes 450 and 900, used extensively in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in 2014, in which more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed.

A member of Palestine Action said about the new “ad-hack”: 

“We will expose companies which aid war criminals to attempt to hide their complicity behind ‘green-washing’ adverts. If you aid war criminals, you are war criminals, and will be exposed as such. Our campaign against JLL will not stop until they evict Elbit. ”

The group has written to the CEO of JLL, Phillip La Pierre, three times in an attempt to meet. After being ignored, activists have doused its offices in blood-red paint seven times and even stormed its Soho office in broad daylight, covering the reception in paint and holding a protest outside. The group is currently preparing to start an open-ended hunger strike outside the company’s key offices if JLL does not respond to Palestine Action’s most recent letter, which requests that a spokesperson for JLL meet them and their lawyers to discuss the implications of hosting Elbit Systems’ UK headquarters.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Palestine Action

  • Palestine Action is a direct-action network of groups and individuals formed with the mandate of taking direct action against Elbit Systems’ UK locations at grassroots level, calling for them all to be shut down and for the British government to end its complicity in Israeli apartheid.
  • Palestine Action has hit the firm’s sites, and those of Jones Lang LaSalle, around 40 times since launching in August 2020. These actions include shutting down UAV Engines in Shenstone on three occasions (the most notorious of which caused £160,000 of damage), and a series of occupations and public protests at Elbit’s London HQ.
  • In the tradition of Palestine Action, further disruptions will be in store. 

Elbit Systems

Previous actions against LaSalle

Public letters to LaSalle

Hunger strike: https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1352697520732954626