I am such an optimist: for the last year I have been saying that Unilever won’t dare overrule the decision by its subsidiary, Ben & Jerry’s, to stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories. No, progressives are winning this debate. And boy was I wrong! This week Unilever undid the move by selling its Israeli franchise– and the owner can keep selling ice cream across the Green Line. The Ben & Jerry’s board, which was supposed to have independence, was justifiably angry.
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And the Israel lobby was triumphant. That was the worst part. Unilever’s CEO Alan Jope sent a letter that morning to the ADL and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, “personally” updating them on the case and suggesting that BDS is antisemitic. It reminded me of the time that President Obama wanted to hire Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State back in 2008 and he reached out to the head of the Conference of Presidents to make the overture. I was shocked by that news too. But it just goes to show the power of the Israel lobby.
The Conference and the ADL and the American Jewish Committee all took credit for having pushed Unilever to overturn Ben & Jerry’s.
And all three organizations said it was a defeat for the BDS campaign, and they are surely right.
But it’s a momentary defeat. Israel’s problem is that it keeps delegitimizing itself: it can’t end the occupation, it can’t stop persecuting Palestinians. The apartheid reports will keep piling up.
Yair Lapid is the new prime minister of Israel. He’s supposedly a centrist, and the best news for liberal Zionists in years. But Lapid called the Ben & Jerry’s move the work of “antisemites”— though company founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are themselves Jews and approved the move.
Lapid is reaching out to American Jews, because he needs them. His first statement as Prime Minister said that Israel belongs to all Jews. It belongs to “those who dreamed of it for thousands of years in the Diaspora and also to those yet to be born.”
We believe that Israel is a Jewish state. Its character is Jewish. Its identity is Jewish. Its relations with its non-Jewish citizens are also Jewish.
And this is a “change” government? A Jewish state that does not belong to its non-Jewish citizens, who never dreamed of its existence?
No wonder young Americans, including young Jews, are losing any faith in Israel’s ability to reform. Like I said, I’m an optimist!
