The Ben & Jerry’s board of directors on Tuesday bemoaned the sale of ice cream under its brand by the company’s Israeli distributor, Blue & White Ice Cream Ltd., reiterating its declaration that selling to Jewish people living in the West Bank was “inconsistent with our values.”
“Any products sold by Blue & White Ice Cream Ltd. are uniquely its own and should not be confused with products produced and distributed by Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc.” a statement by the board said.
“Ben & Jerry’s position is clear: the sale of products bearing any Ben & Jerry’s insignia in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is against our values. Such sales are inconsistent with international law, fundamental human rights, and Ben & Jerry’s social mission.”
In September, Ben & Jerry‘s woke founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, accused the ice cream giant’s parent company Unilever of violating a merger deal signed over two decades ago, over its recent decision to allow the sale of its Israel-based operations.
The former hippies said their concern for Palestinians had no bearing on their feelings for Israeli Jews.
“If I care about the people in Palestine just as much as I care about the people in Israel, is that antisemitic?” Cohen said.
“The decision by the company not to sell ice cream in the occupied Palestinian territories is consistent with the values that the company has had throughout its history of fighting for human rights and dignity,” Greenfield said.
In August, Ben & Jerry‘s sued Unilever after the consumer goods company announced it was selling the Israeli franchise to a local licensee, but a federal judge ruled that the company failed to show how Unilever’s sale would harm the company’s social mission or confuse its customers.
The announcement of the sale came almost a year after Ben & Jerry‘s first said it would stop the sale of ice cream in Jewish settlements in the West Bank for being “inconsistent” with its values.
Ben & Jerry‘s anti-Israel move prompted major financial headaches for Unilever, with several U.S. states divesting all public funds from it.
Unilever’s own Chief Executive Officer, Alan Jope, took a swipe at Ben & Jerry’s for singling out Israel as the hill to die on.
“There is plenty for Ben & Jerry’s to get their teeth into in their social justice mission without straying into geopolitics,” he said in a quarterly earnings review in July.
The social justice warriors at the helm of the ice cream giant have a long record of leveraging the brand for their political activism, with the release of new flavors for a range of causes du jour from climate change, same-sex marriage, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter.
In an interview last year, Cohen and Greenfield were asked why the decision to boycott a state over its policies never stretched to Georgia and Texas, despite their vocal opposition to those states’ abortion and voting rights laws.
“Why do you still sell ice cream in Georgia? Texas?” McCammond asked.
Clearly stumped, Cohen, a Bernie Sanders supporter, shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said, laughing.
“You ask a really good question and I think I’d have to sit down and think about it for a bit.”
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