State Department Rejects BDS After Ben & Jerry’s Joins Anti-Semitic Movement
The State Department on Tuesday said it "firmly rejects" the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, just a day after ice cream giant Ben & Jerry's announced that it would stop selling its products in what it called "occupied Palestinian territory."
The left-wing ice cream company announced its support for the BDS movement, which seeks to wage economic warfare on Israel, by stating that its products will no longer be sold in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Supporters of the BDS movement, which is widely seen as anti-Semitic, say that these contested territories are Palestinian lands and that Israel is occupying them.
When asked to clarify the Biden administration's stance on the BDS movement in light of Ben & Jerry's decision, a State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon, "The United States firmly rejects the BDS movement, which unfairly singles out Israel." The statement is likely to rankle far-left elements of the Democratic Party that have sought to push the Biden administration into endorsing BDS.
"While the Biden-Harris Administration will fully and always respect the American people's First Amendment rights, the United States will be a strong partner in fighting efforts to delegitimize Israel, and we will work tirelessly to support Israel's further integration into the international community," the spokesman said.
The ice cream company explained in a Monday statement on its decision that "it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry's ice-cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory." The company will not renew its contract with the Israeli manufacturer that distributes its ice cream in Israel after it expires later this year.
Recently elected Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said Ben & Jerry's has "decided to brand itself as anti-Israel ice-cream."
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), a leading pro-Israel lawmaker, accused the company of catering to anti-Semites and discriminating against Jews.
The decision "to target hundreds of thousands of Jewish customers abroad with this discriminatory boycott is a disgrace and a direct embrace of the anti-Israel BDS movement," Zeldin said, adding that he will pressure New York state to cut ties with the company under laws prohibiting the government from partnering with companies that back the BDS movement.
US State Department on @benandjerrys: We firmly reject the BDS movement, which unfairly singles out Israel.”
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) July 20, 2021
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How US laws against Israel boycotts could hit Ben & Jerry’s
The board’s chairwoman, Anuradha Mittal, was furious with Unilever’s response, telling NBC that Unilever was “trying to destroy the soul of the company. We want this company to be led by values and not be dictated by the parent company.”
Mittal, an outspoken critic of Israel on social media, is the founder of the Oakland Institute, a progressive think tank that advocates on issues including trade and land rights.
Even though the current Ben & Jerry’s pledge says it will keep selling in the rest of Israel that it does not consider “occupied,” that may not protect the company from legal repercussions.
Among the 33 states with anti-BDS laws, 21 have measures that target boycotts that include areas controlled by Israel — meaning the West Bank. The language usually reads as it did in the Illinois law passed in 2015: “‘Boycott Israel’ means engaging in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel or companies based in the State of Israel or in territories controlled by the State of Israel.”
Ben & Jerry’s could not credibly claim that it does not understand that boycotting settlements would effectively lead to a boycott of all of Israel, argues Eugene Kontorovich, the director of the Center for the Middle East and International Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Kontorovich, who is widely seen as an “intellectual architect” of the anti-BDS legislative push, noted that Israel’s laws effectively ban boycotts of the West Bank and that the term “Occupied Palestinian Territory” likely includes eastern Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its sovereign territory. (The company’s statement did not specify from which territories it was seeking to extract its ice cream.) “Ben & Jerry’s is doing this in full awareness that this will basically end their business with Israel,” Kontorovich said.
“Under Israeli law, a business can’t discriminate amongst Israeli citizens, regardless of where they live, and certainly in Israeli sovereign territory,” he added. “The licensee, in this case, understands this full well, and has explained to Ben & Jerry’s that [the licensee] really has no choice but to end its association with Ben & Jerry’s.”
@NYCMayor joins the #BoycottBenAndJerry movement. pic.twitter.com/zexRWw2nqv
— Rabbi Yisroel Kahan ???? (@ykahan) July 20, 2021
Ben & Jerry’s Targets Anti-Semite Demographic With Audacious New Ice Cream Flavors
Left-wing dessert has slaughtered millions through its contributions to the global obesity epidemic
Ben & Jerry's, a left-wing ice cream company owned by Unilever, announced Monday that it will stop selling its products in the so-called Occupied Palestinian Territory, more commonly known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The company, which is at least partially responsible for the nearly three million annual deaths from obesity, argued that selling ice cream in those areas was "inconsistent with our values." Others argued the move was merely a performative display of anti-Semitism designed to appeal to journalists and other radical liberals.
New information exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon suggests the company's commitment to anti-Semitism was the driving force behind the decision. Documents obtained by the Free Beacon reveal that Ben & Jerry's plans to target the anti-Semite demographic with an extensive ad campaign touting the release of at least five new ice cream flavors.
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