Parsing the Ben & Jerry’s Announcement
What’s going on with Ben & Jerry’s in Israel? It’s worth looking at in some detail, but let’s start with reviewing the case of another company that recently made a decision about business in the region. Last month General Mills announced that it was divesting from its Israeli subsidiary and would stop manufacturing Pillsbury products at a factory located in an illegal settlement. For two years the company had been the target of a campaign launched by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) that had called on consumers to boycott Pillsbury until the factory was shut down.
General Mills did not acknowledge the campaign in its announcement and even contacted pro-Israel media outlets to make it clear that they didn’t endorse BDS. This messaging was celebrated by Zionists as proof that the BDS movement remains an abject failure. Such reasoning can’t survive much scrutiny. As AFSC’s Economic Activism Director Dov Baum told me, it just doesn’t add up:
For two years, our campaign has asked them to stop sourcing Pillsbury products from that factory, but their original statement didn’t say anything about that factory. So selling off their Israeli subsidiary did not necessarily mean that they would stop sourcing from that factory. We wrote to the company asking for clarification about that and, again, we received no answer. In the last few days, our campaign came out with a victory statement saying, yes, we think the company really, indeed plans to stop sourcing from the factory. We do that on the basis of reading between the lines of their statements and between the lines means that they came out with another statement saying that they would continue selling their other brands in Israel, which to me means they will no longer sell Pillsbury products in Israel.
They also said that they are moving away from the dough business. The factory is a frozen dough production line, so that means they would stop producing in that factory. In one of the news outlets, they were actually asked about the factory and they said, “Well, that is a dough factory. So we will not continue using it.” So I find this all to be very clever maneuvering on their part, but a total victory for our campaign. They’re doing what we’ve asked them to do and I congratulate them for that.
General Mills has good reason to deny that BDS activism had an impact. Last summer after Ben & Jerry’s announced that it planned to stop selling its ice cream in the occupied territories the ice cream manufacturer, and its parent company Unilever, were bombarded with attacks.
Israel Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (who becomes Prime Minister at midnight tonight) called the decision “a shameful surrender to antisemitism, to BDS and to all that is wrong with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse.” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared the move “a moral mistake” and promised that Israel would “fight it with all our might.” Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan called on U.S. states to sanction the company. Israeli Economy Minister Orna Barbivay posted a video of her throwing away a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote a column comparing the company (which was founded by two Jews) to the Nazis. Twelve attorney generals wrote a letter condemning the decision. Multiple states moved to divest from Unilever.
The irony of this hysterical response was that Ben & Jerry’s hadn’t actually done anything. In their announcement they made it clear that they weren’t getting out Israel altogether and that they weren’t backing the BDS movement. For over a decade the group leading the charge on the issue had been Vermonters for Justice in Palestine (VTJP). Their demands had remained the same:
1. End the marketing, catering and sales of Ben & Jerry’s products in Israel and Jewish-only settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
2. Stop manufacturing ice cream in Israel.
3. Issue a statement (a) calling on Israel to end its occupation and settlement enterprise and (b) appealing directly to other socially responsible companies to do likewise and to cease business operations in Israel and its illegal settlements.
VTJP put out a statement at the time of the Ben & Jerry’s decision a year ago. They called the move a “small victory” and reiterated their demands. That’s pretty much how things have remained for almost exactly a year, until this week when Unilever announced that it was selling Ben & Jerry’s Israel business to its local licensee in the country. That’s Avi Zinger, owner of American Quality Products.
The decision was immediately embraced by Israel’s defenders as a reversal of Unilever’s original decision. “The Ben & Jerry’s factory in Israel is a microcosm of the diversity of Israeli society,” tweeted Lapid. “Today’s victory is a victory for all those who know that the struggle against BDS is, first and foremost, a struggle for partnership and dialogue, and against discrimination and hate.” A representative for Nelson Peltz, an “activist investor” who is scheduled to join Unilever’s board next month, praised the decision. Peltz is on the board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tagged Unilever as antisemitic last year. “This news is as welcome as a scoop of Cherry Garcia on a hot summer day,” tweeted ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. After obtaining the business Zinger declared that BDS has been defeated. “There is no place for discrimination in the commercial sale of ice cream,” he said. “BDS lost… This is a victory for those who seek cooperation and coexistence, and a resounding defeat for discrimination.”
Once again, this doesn’t entirely add up. Zinger is going to sell Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in Israel, but the brand name will be in Hebrew and Arabic, and Unilever won’t be making money off it. In other words, the company did end its business in the occupied territories. Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch was on NPR essentially making this point. “Unilever has tried to undermine the Ben & Jerry’s decision by selling that business to an Israeli distributor or supplier,” he explained. “But that, you know, does not change the reality that Ben & Jerry’s isn’t operating, isn’t doing business..in settlements.”
The decision might not be the victory that anti-BDS forces claim, but it’s also difficult to call it a win for the other side. Ben & Jerry’s (which maintains an independent board) put out a statement expressing disappointment with the move. “While our parent company has taken this decision, we do not agree with it,” it reads. “Unilever’s arrangement means Ben & Jerry’s in Israel will be owned and operated by [Zinger’s company] AQP. Our company will no longer profit from Ben & Jerry’s in Israel. We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry’s values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Arkansas BDS Law
Last week the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Arkansas’s anti-BDS law did not violate the First Amendment. The law had been challenged by the Arkansas Times, with legal support from the ACLU. The new ruling reverses the decision of a three-judge panel that found it unconstitutional. The news was predictably celebrated by anti-Palestine groups and individuals. Great news. “This is a great win for Arkansas and a loss for the anti-Semitic BDS movement,” tweeted Senator Tom Cotton.
Mitchell Plitnick covered the news at our site. He quotes Julie Bacha, director of the film, Boycott: “There’s no First Amendment Exception to Palestine and this is as good time as any for the Democratic Party to learn this lesson, before irreparable damage to our rights in America is done.”
“The Eighth Circuit’s decision is wrong, and we intend to seek Supreme Court review. The court’s conclusion that politically-motivated consumer boycotts are not protected by the First Amendment misreads Supreme Court precedent and departs from this nation’s longstanding traditions,” said ACLU attorney Brian Hauss. “It ignores the fact that this country was founded on a boycott of British goods and that boycotts have been a fundamental part of American political discourse ever since. We hope and expect that the Supreme Court will set things right and reaffirm the nation’s historic commitment to providing robust protection to political boycotts.”
And here’s Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt: “We are obviously disappointed and note that these laws, which were originally passed in over 30 states, have been overturned in every court except this one. We consider being banned from doing business with our state government for refusing to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel a ridiculous government overreach that has nothing to do with Arkansas. More importantly, in our particular case it requires the Arkansas Times to take a political position in return for advertising. We don’t do that. I acknowledge that this ruling will continue to damage us financially. The good news is that we have received tremendous support from our readers to the point that we now have over 3,000 paid online subscribers, which has done much to cushion the financial impact of this law. In meetings with our ACLU attorneys this morning we anticipate an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
We will be covering this story closely.
Odds & Ends
?️ In Illinois’ 6th district Rep. Sean Casten defeated Rep. Marie Newman in the Democratic primary by almost 25,000 votes. The two incumbents ended up running against one another after the state lost a congressional state during its recent redistricting. Newman was one of just nine House members to vote against additional Iron Dome funding last fall. Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) spent $450,000 backing Casten in the race.
?? Abdelnasser Rashid beat 7-term incumbent Rep. Michael Zalewski in the Democratic primary for the 21st District of the Illinois House. Rashid would become the first Palestinian to serve as an Illinois State Representative.
? Senator Bernie Sanders on the AIPAC attacks on Rep. Andy Levin, who is in a tight race with Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan: “Once again, these extremists are pouring millions of dollars into a congressional race to try to ensure the Democratic Party advances the agenda of powerful corporations and the billionaire class.”
? A number of scholars have established something called the Jewish Studies Zionist Network to combat ant-Zionism on campus. Does this count as “cancel culture”?
?? Republican megadonors Bernie Marcus and Paul Singer each donated a million dollars to AIPAC’s United Democracy Project Super PAC, which has spent heavily on recent Democratic races. Rep. Mark Pocan on Twitter: “GOP donors giving money through a ‘democratic’ effort is a major Trojan horse. Beware this type of giving. And proceed with great caution on AIPAC’s endorsements. The candidates should renounce these efforts to be credible.”
? Jonathan Ofir on the Ben & Jerry’s news: “This story has to have significance in relation to how one strategizes a boycott against Israel. The moral of the story is, that the ‘selective boycott‘, that is a boycott of Israel’s war crimes– and settlements are war crimes, under international law– will result in the same response as a more inclusive boycott call that takes the whole country to task for its violations, which include crimes against humanity such as Apartheid. Ben & Jerry’s have tried to go the selective way, a way which has been the hallmark of many ‘liberal Zionists’, but the Israeli response from top down suggests that there is no benefit in such caution. It simply misses the mark. The Israeli government (notably with its supposedly liberal heroes), will treat any boycott, as partial as it may be, as an attack on the whole state, and in fact, as an attack on all Jews..”
?️ The Mapping Project continues to be attacked by pro-Israel groups and lawmakers who claim that it promotes violence.
