Newest Member of “The Squad”?

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company has not shied away when it comes to involving itself in the political arena. In the latest example, Ben and Jerry’s independent board of directors released a statement indicating they would no longer sell products in what they call “the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).”

Realize that this includes East Jerusalem and other key parts of sovereign Israeli territory. So we know exactly what this is – a direct attack on Israel and the Jewish people.

The parent company of Ben and Jerry’s, Unilever, stands by Ben and Jerry’s announcement. Unilever is a massive company that owns numerous different brands throughout the world. Both the multinational corporation and their subsidiaries need to be held accountable for the antisemitic actions they have displayed with this announcement.

ACLJ Senior Council Andy Ekonomou commented on Unilever standing by Ben and Jerry’s announcement:

"This doesn’t bother these left-wing woke companies who have these political decisions that they want to make in connection with their businesses. They need to stay out of the political arena, and they need to stick to the ice cream arena, which is very good at what they do. Unilever is a multinational huge industrial giant of a company. It has now made a political decision that “occupied territories” are not going to [sell] their products. Who are they to make that decision? Under what authority do they have? Are they some kind of supranational world court that makes a decision of what is and what is not Israel? No, I don’t think so."

Even worse, the head of the board of directors – Anuradha Mittal – who helped make this decision, admitted she was proud of their anti-Israel announcement. She tweeted:

"I am proud of Ben and Jerry’s for taking a stance to end sale of its ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This action is not antisemitic. I am not antisemitic. The vile hate that has been thrown at me does not intimidate me. Please work for peace – not hatred."

Will other international companies do the same? ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs Mike Pompeo commented on if he feels this decision will cause a resurgence of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement:

"I think it is almost certainly the case that companies around the world will say that this Administration is not full throttle in support of Israel and the relationship between the United States and Israel. They will go back to the practices that they had before the Trump Administration. We not only made clear that these kinds of activities were unacceptable . . . . We made clear and ripped off the band-aid on 40 years of U.S. policy and made unambiguous that Judea and Samaria were rightly parts of the state of Israel. And that Israel is not an occupying nation, this is not apartheid, this is the lone democracy in the Middle East. Those clear statements and bright lines made the State of Israel stronger and these BDS movements actually have to acknowledge the actions they were taking that were deeply against the Jewish homeland and deeply antisemitic."

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo successfully negotiated the Abraham Accords and made real progress in Israel. He commented on what the Biden Administration did with all of the progress made under the Trump Administration:

"It breaks my heart. I thought they would immediately acknowledge that the peace that had broken out between these Arab states and Israel . . . would be the basis of how the Biden Administration moves forward with Israel and that there would be other countries that would join. They won’t even utter the words “Abraham Accords.” . . . When I became Secretary of State it was remarkable to see the resistance inside, frankly, the Department of State and elsewhere in the U.S. government to the commonsense set of understanding that Israel is not an occupying power."

The antisemitism has to stop. There is no place for antisemitism anywhere in the United States and especially not in corporate America. The ACLJ is looking at the legal ramifications and ways to combat this latest example of antisemitism. This is only the beginning of this fight.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of Ben and Jerry’s announcement of ending sales in key parts of Israel.