A win for the BDS, but for how long? Here is the story of the Great Ice Cream Betrayal: “Ben & Jerry’s melts under BDS pressure, to stop selling in settlements,” by Tovah Lazaroff and Maayan Giloh, Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2021:
Well-known ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s announced on Monday its plan to boycott West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, by refusing to allow its products to be sold in those areas.
“We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT),” the company stated in a notice it posted on its website.
The move gives a boost to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has targeted the Vermont-based American company for the last decade.
The group Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine had been particularly active on the issue.
Hmmm. So for the last decade Ben and Jerry’s has been under the relentless assault of the BDSers. Yet it held out until today. After such a long time, what made it finally succumb? Did it learn something about the legal status of Judea and Samaria (a.k.a the “West Bank”) that it hadn’t known before? That seems unlikely. More likely, its problem was that Ben and Jerry did not know anything about the legal status of Judea and Samaria, and chose not to find out. They were simply worn down by a local group in Vermont, and worried, too, that the BDSers might harm their sales in the U.S. It was a matter of simple calculation: we stand to lose a lot of sales if we don’t satisfy the BDS movement. Why not give them what they want?
The ice cream company, known for taking a stand on social justice issues, clarified that it was not boycotting Israel, just the “occupied Palestinian territories.”
What arrogance, what surquidry, what swank: we, Ben and Jerry, are both supremely well-informed on the issue of the “Palestinian territories” and morally superior in every move we make. Just look at all the “rights” we support: women’s rights, LGBT rights, immigrants’ rights, voters’ rights. How could we be on the wrong side of anything? We are here to make the world a better place. We’re not just selliing ice cream. We’re“repairing the world.” Tikkun olam, dontcha know?
Have you, Ben, and you too, Jerry, read the Mandate for Palestine? Would it surprise you to learn that Article 6 of that Mandate calls for “close settlement by Jews on the land”? Which land? Oh, the “land” the League of Nations had assigned to the future Jewish National Home. That is, all the land from the Golan in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east, to the Mediterranean in the west? Do you know that when the League of Nations went out of business in 1946, the U.N., in Article 80 of its Charter, had already pledged to continue honoring the mandates that were then still in effect? The BDS has been after you two for ten years, and in all that time, while you fended off its threats, you didn’t give a thought to reading – much less comprehending – the Mandate for Palestine? You’ve each made $150 million. You can’t be working all the time. You must have some time to read. You’re not idiots. Do your homework.
And what about U.N. Resolution 242, which was passed unanimously by the U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 22, 1967? That’s the Resolution that gave Israel the right to retain any territory that it had won in the Six-Day War if it was needed by the Jewish state to have “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries”? Have you — Jerry? Ben? — read that Resolution? Have you read the detailed discussion of its meaning provided by its main author, the British ambassador to the U.N., Lord Caradon? No. I thought not. Perhaps you two have fallen for the Arab line that Resolution 242 required Israel to withdraw from “all the territories” it won in 1967? Just read and remember this:
The chief drafter of Resolution 242 was Lord Caradon (Hugh M. Foot), the permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations from 1964-1970. At the time of the Resolution’s discussion and subsequent unanimous passage, and on many occasions since, Lord Caradon always insisted that the phrase “from the territories” quite deliberately did not mean “all the territories,” but merely some of the territories:
Much play has been made of the fact that we didn’t say “the” territories or “all the” territories. But that was deliberate. I myself knew very well the 1967 boundaries and if we had put in the “the” or “all the” that could only have meant that we wished to see the 1967 boundaries perpetuated in the form of a permanent frontier. This I was certainly not prepared to recommend.
On another occasion, to an interviewer from the Journal of Palestine Studies (Spring-Summer 1976), he again insisted on the deliberateness of the wording. He was asked:
The basis for any settlement will be United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, of which you were the architect. Would you say there is a contradiction between the part of the resolution that stresses the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and that which calls for Israeli withdrawal from “occupied territories,” but not from “the occupied territories”?
Lord Caradon answered:
I defend the resolution as it stands. What it states, as you know, is first the general principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. That means that you can’t justify holding onto territory merely because you conquered it. We could have said: well, you go back to the 1967 line. But I know the 1967 line, and it’s a rotten line. You couldn’t have a worse line for a permanent international boundary. It’s where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1948. It’s got no relation to the needs of the situation.
Had we said that you must go back to the 1967 line, which would have resulted if we had specified a retreat from all the occupied territories, we would have been wrong.
Have you now learned enough to realize that those “settlements” are not illegal, as the BDS crowd had apparently, after 10 years of trying, finally managed to convince you or at least worn you down so much that you pretended to be convinced? The Mandate for Palestine doesn’t just allow, but positively encourages, “close settlement by Jews” on the land assigned to the Mandate. U.N. Resolution 242 doesn’t just allow, but positively encourages, Israel to hold onto territory it needs for its defense, as determined by the Israelis themselves. And that includes, at a minimum, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights, and those settlements in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a the West Bank) where half a million Israelis live who in any future war, because the adults have all received military training and served in the IDF, will, be an important reserve force, capable of helping to stop any potential invader from the East. Do you, Ben Cohen, and you, Jerry Greenfield,, really want Israel to be squeezed back into the 1949 armistice lines that Abba Eban once described as the “lines of Auschwitz”? Do you want Israel to again have a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea? Nine miles: that’s only one-third the distance from your headquarters in South Burlington to your plant in St. Albans. Something to think about.
It [Ben and Jerry’s] said that it would maintain its sales relationship with areas of Israel within the pre-1967 borders.
“Although Ben & Jerry’s will no longer be sold in the OPT, we will stay in Israel through a different arrangement. We will share an update on this as soon as we’re ready,” the company explained….’
One resident of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement who did not want to be named said he was disappointed by the announcement, but it would not cause him to boycott Ben & Jerry’s in return.
“It’s the best ice cream you can get in stores here by far,” he said. “I’ll just buy my New York Chunk Fudge in Jerusalem and smuggle it back home past all the checkpoints.”
I hope this forgiving attitude is not shared by many in Israel. Ben and Jerry’s has slapped you in the face – Ma’aleh Adumim is one of those cities that the company considers to be a “settlement” in the so-called “Occupied Palestinian Territories” – so slap them right back. Give up the New York Chunk Fudge. Give up Cherry Garcia. It’s not such a sacrifice. You want Ben and Jerry’s to suffer economically, not just to teach that company a lesson, but to discourage other companies that might be calculating that they should follow in its footsteps.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu quipped, “Now we Israelis know which ice cream NOT to buy.”
It’s not just Israelis, of course, who now know which ice cream not to buy. It’s all those who are outraged by that sinister worldwide BDS campaign, who want to express solidarity with Israel, who want to infuriate Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour, who will now determinedly boycott Ben and Jerry’s.
And let us not forget that 30 states have passed anti-BDS measures – mostly condemnations, but some were laws that forbid contracting with, or investing in, companies that subscribe to a boycott of Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said: “Ben & Jerry’s has decided to brand itself as the anti-Israel ice cream. This decision is morally wrong and I believe that it will become clear that it is also commercially wrong.”
Ben and Jerry’s calculates it has more to lose in sales by ignoring BDS than it does in yielding to it. It may pretend that such a crude financial calculation had nothing to do with such a high-minded decision. But of course. It had everything to do with it. As Mr. Dooley famously said, “When people say it’s not the money, it’s the principle – it’s the money.”
Make Prime Minister Bennett’s prediction of a “business mistake” come true. Turn to other brands, as good or better, and usually much healthier, than Ben and Jerry’s.
After I finished writing the above, I went out, bought, and then tried a dish of Talenti’s Sicilian Pistachio. Wonderful. This brand comes with a history lesson. It is named after the celebrated Italian Renaissance architect, Bernardo Buontalenti, who at the whimsical command of his patron Cosimo I de’ Medici, first came up with the dessert we call ice cream. That’s a pedigree that puts Ben and Jerry’s in the shade. Try it.
Stay Away From Islam says
Oh my God. No ice cream? The world is coming to an end! Who cares? There are a lot of ice cream manufacturers that will fill the vois. Ben and Jerry actually think that because their anti-semetic boycott goes into effect that they’ll make a difference? How presumptuous can you get? I’ve already cancelled this woke Maxist enterprise. What a joke this company is.
maria says
they are stupid idiots. I boycotted their “ice cream” from the beginning and always order Häägen -Dazs (not sure about spelling) which is much better and has no artificial ingredients.
Everything which is labelled Ben@Jerry should be boycotted
jule says
Interesting however there is NO OCCUPATION. This is a twisted lie which someone has to explain not only to USA but to Biden. Too many people just accepted propaganda from Islam withouchecking history, treaties, accords
Grace says
Never bought them after the first taste. Over hyped and overpriced they have always been political. Biased Opinion is the last flavor I want in my ice cream.
gravenimage says
I always liked their ice cream–their politics, not so much…
mccode says
Too bad, so sad.
The actual result of this woke action is that everybody in the “occupied territories” (including the very persons whom B+J are so concerned about) will do without, not just the maligned “occupiers”.
Just another heaping helping of self-righteousness from a company that apparently doesn’t see the full effects of its theatrics.
And, even though their products are delicious, it’s better that no one consume their artery clogging crap anyway.
Stop Kafirophobia says
I will continue to buy Häagen-Dazs. It’s better than Ben and Jerry’s anyway.
Infidel says
Yeah, that’s what I have. Actually, my issue is that I’ve very picky about food, and as far as ice cream goes, the only flavors I care for are coffee and strawberry. Häagen-Dazs is the only one that I can easily find in my store in the first flavor, so that’s what I have in my fridge. I just hope their management doesn’t decide to go woke
Shame on that Ma’aleh Adumim resident who wants to smuggle his ice cream from Jerusalem: hope it melts on the way ? I gave up coke a few weeks ago in response to their decision to condemn Georgia’s tightening of its voting laws, and that is far more addictive than ice cream
Wonder how well Ben & Jerry’s sell in the Arab countries surrounding Israel. Do those people have much patience w/ Ben & Jerry’s LGBTQ or other campaigns? B’cos every one of Ben & Jerry’s pet causes find their worst enemies in dar ul islam
GreekEmpress says
+1
Infidel says
Well, unlike most woke companies of today – P&G, Coke, American Airlines, Delta, Cisco, et al, Ben & Jerry’s has always been a communist company. The first time I heard of them was in the 90s, when in response to the trend of high executive salaries, they tried to cap it but weren’t getting anyone, and finally, they decided to have an essay competition to pick their CEO. The founders are rabid Marxists and supported Bernie in both 2016 and 2020.
If anything, I was surprised to know that they sell in Israel at all! Yeah, the owners are JINOs, but that was more meaningful in the 90s when it was a way of distinguishing Jewish identity from Christian by endorsing the Liberals. But today’s Dems are hard Left, not Liberal: Leon Trotsky would be hounded there just like he was by Stalin
Israelis should simply boycott Ben & Jerry’s en masse, and buy their ice cream from other vendors
Kagman says
That’s the last quart of that crap I’ll ever eat… The irony: Both Ben and Jerry are Jewish
Infidel says
Liberal/Leftist Jews are JINOs. Or it’s only the racial aspect of Jews that they belong to, not the religious aspect
Rarely says
infidel.
FYI. Ben & Jerry’s is owned by Unilever and neither Ben nor Jerry even have a seat on the Board. So much for your JINO slur.
Infidel says
Rarely
Are you claiming that either/both Ben and Jerry are opposed to the BDS campaign? Both are Sanders supporters and open Marxists: I’d like to see any evidence that either of these 2 men support Israel
Rarely says
Infidel.
Interesting. On what do you base your assertion that they are Marxists?
What evidence do you have that they support BDS and are anti-Israel?
Rarely says
Infidel.
BTW. What is your definition of someone being a JINO?
Who would be a Christian INO?
gravenimage says
Rarely, neither Ben Cohen or Jerry Greenfield have come out against this move by Ben and Jerry’s. Surely they would do so if they opposed it.
Infidel says
Rarely
Answer to your question – a Jew who actively supports muslims, particularly in campaigns against Israel, but also at a civic level in causes that violate Jewish precepts or go against the interests of the rights of Jews to practice their faith. Almost all of the Left – except Alan Dershowitz – fit that label. As do certain parts of the Israeli media, such as Haaretz
CINO – the reason that’s not there is that when someone calls themselves atheist or agnostic, it’s automatically assumed that they’re not Christian. So a person w/ a Christian sounding name ain’t automatically assumed to be Christian. I like this convention and think it should be applied to everyone else (except muslims) – Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Daoists, Shintoists… W/ Jews, however, it’s complicated given that Jews are both a race and a religion, but the term JINO clearly refers to faith
As for being Marxist, both Ben & Jerry have been way on the Left ever since the 90s, and have lionized Leftist icons from Jerry Garcia (who do you think ‘Cherry Garcia’ is named after?) right down to Bernie Sanders. And Bernie’s claims that he supports Scandinavian style ‘socialism’ is a crock: Scandinavian countries may be high tax states and welfare states, but they’re definitely not socialist: government doesn’t control means of production and doesn’t regulate businesses the way it does here in the US. The true face of US socialism has come out last year, and its results can already be seen in California. The bulk of those Marxists in last years Dem primaries didn’t vote for Kamala or Julian Castro or Beto or Gillibrand or Booker or anyone else: they voted for Bernie. So did both Ben & Jerry: it’s not just that Bernie is from their neck of the woods
Rarely says
infidel
Very interesting. So a Christian can avoid being called a CINO by being non-practicing but a non-practicing Jew can still be a JINO. You don’t know what you are talking about. You are simply trying to rationalize your anti-Semitism which manages to sneak through.
Wellington says
No one in my family has bought Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for at least twenty years now because this company has been Leftist from the outset. It was woke before wokeness was invented. How refreshing it is not to have a single blood relative who is on the Left side of the political spectrum. I know many conservatives are not so fortunate.
I do have a question for anyone who cares to answer it and it is this: Didn’t the original League of Nations’ British Mandate for Palestine allow Jews to settle in any part of it, including east of the Jordan River? I know that not long after the Mandate was established the UK sectioned off about 78% of it to create Transjordan (now Jordan) and Jews were henceforth verboten there (including dead Jews in graves which graves were dug up and desecrated by Arab Muslims). But until this occurred by the British wasn’t the Mandate originally intended to include for Jews land on both sides of the Jordan River? Anyone?
GOLDMANN says
There is no need for BLASPHEMY ? do you know? YOU will have to give an account for that on judgement day✝️?
James Lincoln says
I usually take a foliage trip up to Stowe, Vermont every autumn with my family.
On the way home, we invariably stop at Ben & Jerry’s in Waterbury for a cone of vanilla.
No more…
gravenimage says
Ben and Jerry’s Will No Longer Sell Its Ice Cream In ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory’
…………………
Disgusting.
Rick Cox says
Ben & Jerry have no “Values”.