Electronic Intifada trumpets:
The legal dispute between Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever has ended in a bit of a fudge.But as a result, the ice cream maker can say that it is standing by its July 2021 decision to end all business in Israel so as not to be complicit in Israel’s illegal colonization of occupied Palestinian land.That being the case, the outcome can be seen as a win for supporters of Palestinian rights.
As usually is the case with Israel-haters, they are lying.
When Unilever said that it would sell its Ben & Jerry's business in Israel to an Israeli company back in June, its own Ben & Jerry's subsidiary sued its parent company stop the sale altogether and to not allow anyone to sell ice cream with their name in Israel and the West Bank.
This settlement is a loss for Ben & Jerry's - as the Israeli company says in its press release:
Avi Zinger, issued the following statement in response to the settlement reached today by Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s:“I am pleased that the litigation between Unilever and the independent Board of Ben & Jerry’s has been resolved. There is no change to the agreement I made with Unilever earlier in the year. I look forward to continuing to produce and sell the great tasting Ben & Jerry’s ice cream under the Hebrew and Arabic trademarks throughout Israel and the West Bank long into the future.”
Zinger's company, American Quality Products Ltd (AQP), can still sell ice cream named Ben and Jerry's in Israel and in the West Bank - and to Palestinians, too. All of which Ben and Jerry's tried to stop.
The only "victory" for Ben and Jerry's, which the haters are loudly bragging about, is that Israel is no longer mentioned in the Ben and Jerry's "Where We Do Business" webpage. They add a paragraph saying,
Unilever has sold trademark rights to the Hebrew and Arabic language versions of the Ben & Jerry’s name to Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd. No English language trademark of the Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. has been transferred to Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd. Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd. is a completely separate and distinct entity from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. Ben & Jerry’s has no ownership of or economic interest in Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd.
This was exactly the situation in June when Unilever sold the trademark rights to AQP/Blue and White.
Ben & Jerry's dropped the lawsuit and gained exactly nothing from it. Unilever changed nothing, AQP changed nothing.
The only people who can call this a "victory" for Ben & Jerry's are people whose interest in truth is nonexistent.
The ironic thing is that, in one sense, this really is a victory for "supporters of Palestinian rights." Because now, Ben & Jerry's can be sold to Palestinian stores in the West Bank, with Arabic labeling, when before it was not available. But people who call themselves "supporters of Palestinian rights" are against that outcome, because the manufacturer is Israeli.
They don't want Palestinians to decide for themselves what kind of ice cream they can buy. They want to make that decision for them. Which shows you how little they care about "Palestinian rights."
(I'm also wondering whether the Unilever agreement with AQP would allow AQP to sell Arabic-labeled B&J ice cream to the UAE, Bahrain or other Arab countries - none of which now can obtain Ben & Jerry's ice cream. It would be truly ironic to see the Ben & Jerry's company protesting an Israeli company selling its Arabic-labeled ice cream to Arab countries - a symbol of peaceful relations - in the name of "social justice.")
