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Freezer with advertising for Ben & Jerry's ice cream in a supermarket in an Israeli settlement area
Photo: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS
The announcement is only a few lines long, but it makes waves: The US ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's has announced that it will stop selling its products in the Israeli settlement areas in the West Bank.
"We believe that it is incompatible with our values that Ben & Jerry's ice cream is sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," said the company, which belongs to the consumer goods company Unilever, on Monday.
"We also hear and acknowledge the concerns of our fans and trustworthy partners," it continued to justify.
The previous cooperation with the relevant licensee for sales in the region will expire at the end of next year.
In Israel itself, however, they want to continue selling products.
The reaction from Israel came promptly.
The government warned the parent company Unilever of "serious consequences."
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he had spoken to Unilever boss Alan Jope about the ice cream maker's "blatant anti-Israel measures".
"From the Israeli point of view, this action has grave consequences, both legally and otherwise," it said.
One will "take aggressive action against any boycott that targets civilians," said Bennett, according to a statement from his office to Unilever boss Jope.
The Israel Foreign Ministry criticized Ben & Jerry's decision as "surrendering to the continued and aggressive pressure from extreme anti-Israeli groups" and said the company was cooperating with "economic terrorism."
Unilever took over the Vermont-based ice cream maker in 2000.
According to the Reuters news agency, the group did not want to comment on the current discussion.
Avi Zinger, head of Ben & Jerry's Israeli licensee, told the public broadcaster Kan this Tuesday that the parent company had been pressuring him to stop selling in the Israeli-occupied territories for a long time.
He refused because it would violate Israeli law.
Zinger called Ben & Jerry's decision not to renew their license "the greatest achievement" of the BDS movement.
The anti-Israel movement, whose name is composed of the central demands "boycott, divestment, sanctions" against Israel, propagates a boycott of all Israeli goods, scientists and services.
She accuses Israel of occupying and colonizing Palestinian land.
Israel accuses the movement of being anti-Semitic and taking unilateral action against the Jewish state - since 2018, the country has refused entry to activists from certain organizations calling for a boycott of Israel.
The Bundestag also approved a resolution against the BDS movement in 2019 with a large majority.
Vermont group put pressure on
On Twitter, a user asked why Ben & Jerry's stopped selling in the Israeli settlement areas, but not in China.
The communist regime there is accused of suppressing the Uyghurs.
Ben & Jerry's did not elaborate on the concerns that led to the planned sales stop in the settlement areas.
However, the AP news agency reported that in the past few weeks a group called the Vermonters for Justice in Palestine had put pressure on the company, calling for it to “be complicit in the Israeli occupation and End violations of human rights in Palestine «.
The announcement by Ben & Jerry's that it would withdraw from the settlement areas was then criticized by the group as not going far enough.
In the West Bank occupied by Israel and East Jerusalem, which is also annexed by Israel, there are currently around 600,000 Jewish settlers among three million Palestinians.
The United Nations consider the settlements to be illegal.
Large parts of the international community regard them as a major obstacle in the Middle East peace process.
In February 2020, the UN published a list of more than a hundred companies that are doing business in the Jewish settlements.
Only recently, Norway's largest pension fund (KLP) announced that it was selling shares in 16 companies because of their links to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
mmq / Reuters / AP
