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This week, Ben & Jerry’s controversially announced that it would no longer be selling ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, stating: “We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)”.
The Israeli Government has condemned the announcement, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stating that the decision was “a shameful surrender to Antisemitism, to BDS and to all that is wrong with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse”.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel would “act vigorously against any act of boycott directed against its citizens”. Hen Israeli, the vice president of Sagi Group, the company that distributes Ben & Jerry’s products in these areas, said that his company “employs 10 Palestinians from nearby villages who receive the same conditions as the Jewish workers. These are conditions and wages that they would not earn in the PA, if they were able to find a job there at all”.
Israel warned that the boycott would harm Palestinian workers, as “such a decision first and foremost harms the employees”.
The UK Government has repeatedly expressed opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and is bringing forward legislation to ban public bodies in the UK from boycotting Israel. Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously said he “cannot think of anything more foolish than to say you want to have any kind of divestment or sanctions or boycott against a country that, when all is said and done, is the only democracy in the region, is the only place that has, in my view, a pluralist open society”.
