The map in question on display at the Coca-Cola factory in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Facebook.

A leading US-based Jewish human rights group is urging the head of Coca-Cola to “take appropriate corporate measures” against its Palestinian franchisee following the display of a plastic bottle cap map — showing a Palestinian flag over all of Israel — at the company’s factory in the Gaza Strip.

The map was brought to the facility earlier this month, according to Dr. Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, by members of the Teacher Creativity Center — a UNESCO-sponsored Palestinian NGO — as part of a Coca-Cola “green” initiative.

“But this was not an innocent environmental exercise,” Samuels said. “This map shows a ‘Palestine’ totally obliterating the State of Israel.”

In a letter sent to Coca-Cola President and CEO James Quincey on Sunday, Samuels called the map “a disturbing abuse of your corporate good name.”

Coca-Cola, Samuels told Quincey, should demand that its Palestinian franchisee “create a Coca-Cola bottle cap map of Israel to place alongside a Palestinian peace map…That would be a great Coca-Cola message against hate and violence.”

A Coca-Cola spokesperson told The Algemeiner on Monday the map was not on display at the Gaza plant “inside or outside.”

“This group simply brought it to us and snapped pictures of it and published them,” the spokesperson said. “We didn’t ask to meet with this group. They just came, we met with them briefly, and they gave this to us.”

This story has been updated to include a response from Coca-Cola.