This commentary is by Katharine Shapiro of Middlesex and Liz Blum of Norwich.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that, “measured on a monthly average, 2022 has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the United Nations started recording fatalities systematically in 2005.”
This included a sharp increase in Jewish settler violence, with at least 1,049 settler attacks from January to September alone.
But the future looks even worse for Palestinians with Benjamin Netanyahu’s return as Israel’s prime minister in coalition with ultra-right religious parties. Israeli settlers and soldiers have already intensified their state-sanctioned campaign of terror, killings, home demolitions and land theft.
But one thing is now beyond their violent reach: the real Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
More than 10 years ago, Vermont activists gathered in Montpelier to consider how they could effectively contribute to the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions) to end Israel’s occupation and settler-colonial project, illegal under international law.
That was the beginning of what became a global initiative to convince Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling its “peace & love” ice cream in Jewish-only settlements in occupied Palestine.
In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s independent board of directors announced the company would cease selling in Israeli settlements, because it was “inconsistent” with its social values.
This triggered hysterical condemnations. Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister slandered the board’s decision as anti-Semitic. Alan Jolpe, the CEO of Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, was threatened by the prime minister with “severe consequences, legal and otherwise.”
Pro-Israel groups in New York accused Ben & Jerry’s, a company founded by two American Jews, of “Jew hatred,” death threats were made on the life of its board chair, and 35 U.S. governors were urged by Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Gilad Erdan, to take punitive measures under their states’ anti-BDS laws.
Surrendering to these threats in June, Unilever announced the sale of Ben & Jerry’s business interests in Israel to the Israeli licensee, Avi Zinger. This would allow Zinger to locally produce and sell under the brand “Blue & White Ice Cream Ltd.”
Bravely, Ben & Jerry’s stood its ground. It took Unilever to federal court last summer to block the sale, arguing it alone retained the contractual right to make decisions about the company’s social mission. The board did not prevail initially, and so updated its lawsuit in September.
In November, it issued another strong statement, making plain that any products of Blue & White Ice Cream “should not be confused” with those of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. It also reiterated the fundamental matter of its social values: “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.”
This month it was reported that Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s had resolved their litigation dispute. The terms are confidential. But we know that Zinger has lost English trademark rights, restricting him to marketing in Hebrew and Arabic. Further, Israel is no longer listed on Ben & Jerry’s website as a country where it does business. The company also makes explicit it is a “completely separate and distinct entity” from Zinger’s business, with “no ownership of or economic interest in Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd.”
Without question, Ben & Jerry’s has severed all its commercial dealings with Avi Zinger — and with Israel’s illegal, Jewish-only settlements, what Vermont activists had demanded from the start.
With this victory, Ben & Jerry’s independent board shows us and the world how a company with social values and a moral backbone, broad-based support from the BDS movement, the Movement 4 Black Lives, Jewish Voice for Peace and other allies against oppression, can advance the cause of justice and international law in Palestine.
Other companies can — and must — do the same.
