The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced on October 12 that they are engaging in advertising campaign to boycott Ben & Jerry’s over their July decision to withdraw from the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The Wiesenthal Center’s ad, which has been placed in newspapers like The Cleveland Jewish News, states: “Ben and Jerry’s is boycotting Israel. Tell your local grocery store to stop selling antisemitic ice cream!”
“It was never just about ice cream sold in East Jerusalem. It is all about Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company profits being leveraged by an activist anti-Semite who hates Israel and defends Hamas – and the corporate executives at Unilever letting it happen,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Global Social Action Director at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement. “This is about arrogance and irresponsibility, enabling the odious anti-Semitic BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement to use money from a global brand to brand Jews as occupiers in their own land at a time when there is a spike of violent attacks against Jews from Germany to the UK to the U.S.”
According to a press release, “Ben & Jerry’s board chairwoman Anuradha Mittal has a track record of endorsing the anti-Semitic BDS movement and defending Hezbollah and Hamas.” Mittal has denied being antisemitic, tweeting that she has received “vile hate” since Ben & Jerry’s announced its Israel decision.
“Thankfully there are laws in our country that ensure there are consequences for such corporate anti-Semitism,” Cooper added. “Just ask the states of Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Florida.” Those states have determined or are in the process of determining if Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, is in violation of their anti-BDS laws.
In an October 10 interview with Axios, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s denied that the ice cream was boycotting Israel, as they said they believe in Israel’s right to exist. When asked if they would also boycott Georgia and Texas over their recent laws on abortion and voting rights, Co-Founder Ben Cohen said, “I don’t know.” Jerry Greenfield, the other co-founder, said that “what Israel is doing [in the West Bank] is considered illegal under international law.”
