Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is guilty of the “occupation” of stolen Native American land, according to a group of Israeli academics and students who accused the famed company of hypocrisy for seeking to stop the sale of its ice cream in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In a letter addressed to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, signed by over 1,000 Israeli students in higher education as well as academics affiliated with the newly-launched Students for Justice in America, the Vermont-based company was called out for hypocrisy and double standards.
According to a Tuesday report from the New York Post, the Israeli group of students and academics accused the ice cream maker of “illegally” occupying Native American land.
The multi-national brand’s Vermont headquarters, according to the signatories, was originally settled by the Abenaki tribe and, thus, should be evacuated at once.
“We have concluded that your company’s occupation of the Abenaki lands is illegal and we believe it is wholly inconsistent with the stated values that Ben & Jerry’s purports to maintain,” the letter, addressed to the chair of the ice cream maker’s board, Anuradha Mittal, reads.
“Ironically, in July of the last year you announced that you would discontinue the sale of your products in Israel because you object to the Jewish State allegedly occupying Palestinian territories,” the letter continues.
![A view of the entrance of the ice-cream shop inside the Ben & Jerry's factory in Be'er Tuvia in southern Israel, on July 21, 2021. - Ben & Jerry's announced that it will stop selling ice cream in the Israel-occupied Palestinian territories since it was "inconsistent with our values", although it said it planned to keep selling its products in Israel. The West Bank and East Jerusalem have been under Israeli control since 1967. Roughly 475,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, in communities widely regarded as illegal under international law, alongside some 2.8 million Palestinians. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP) (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)](https://media.breitbart.com/media/2021/07/GettyImages-1234095800.png)
A view of the entrance of the ice-cream shop inside the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Be’er Tuvia in southern Israel, on July 21, 2021. (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)
It also included a demand that the company clear the properties it “occupies” in South Burlington, Waterbury and St. Albans, in order to “return them to the Abenaki people.”
“Your company has no right to these stolen territories,” the letter adds.
The initiative has the support of “Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center,” an Israeli human rights law organization that blasted Ben & Jerry’s “hypocrisy” and false “moral high ground” in its positions on Israel.
The letter’s tongue-in-cheek accusation follows the ice cream manufacturer taking its parent company, Unilever, to a federal court in New York on Monday for the first hearing in its quest to stop the multinational company from allowing its ice cream to be sold in Israeli West Bank settlements.
Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever after the consumer goods company announced it was selling the Israeli franchise to a local licensee.
The announcement came almost a year after the American company said it would stop the sale of ice cream in Jewish settlements in the West Bank for being “inconsistent” with its values.
Last year, Ben & Jerry’s faced a wave of backlash after announcing plans to boycott Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, or what it termed “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” with many calling out the Vermont-based company’s hypocrisy for continuing to sell to disputed territories around the world and ignoring Palestinian human rights violations.
“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.
In response to the decision, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett blasted the decision, calling it wrong both “morally” and “commercially.”
“There are many ice cream brands, but only one Jewish state,” he wrote.
Leading news satire site The Babylon Bee ridiculed the decision with a mock flavor depicting the company’s position against the Jewish state.
Ben & Jerry’s is no stranger to controversy, having expressed support for “woke” causes on many occasions.
Last year, the ice cream company called to defund police, characterizing the police-involved shooting of Daunte Wright as being intrinsically linked to “white supremacy.”
In 2020, the famed company named a flavor after former NFL player and national anthem protester Colin Kaepernick, and erected a billboard in the Super Bowl host city of Tampa Bay depicting him with a raised fist, next to his “Change the Whirled” flavor and signature “I Know My Rights” sign from his “Know Your Rights Camp.”
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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