Trucks are parked at the Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream factory in the Be’er Tuvia Industrial area, July 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Posted on 08/11/2022 7:16:29 PM PDT by SJackson
Letter is a response to the company’s controversial efforts to halt sales in West bank settlements
A group of 1,000 Israeli students and academics have sent a letter to ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, accusing the company of “occupying” lands belonging to Native American tribes, according to a Tuesday report in the New York Post.
The letter, supported by Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center, accused Ben & Jerry’s of operating their Vermont factory on lands belonging to the Abenaki people.
According to the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs website, the Abenaki nation existed on the land of present-day Vermont for 12,900 years.
“We have concluded that your company’s occupation of the Abenaki lands is illegal and we believe it is wholly inconsistent with the stated values that Ben & Jerry’s purports to maintain,” the letter to Ben & Jerry’s chairperson, Anuradha Mittal, said.
“Ironically, in July of the last year you announced that you would discontinue the sale of your products in Israel because you object to the Jewish State allegedly occupying Palestinian territories.”
The letter concluded by saying that “justice, morality and boycotts are not just slogans and antisemitic weapons for your food company to point at the Jewish community in Israel. Justice and morality must begin at home.”
Trucks are parked at the Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream factory in the Be’er Tuvia Industrial area, July 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
The letter was organized by Students for Justice in America, a group founded to oppose the Students for Justice in Palestine group, who are major supporters of the BDS movement.
According to the New York Post, Shurat HaDin president Nitsana Darshan Leitner accused Ben & Jerry’s of speaking “with a forked tongue,” calling out the company’s hypocrisy in advocating a boycott of the West Bank and East Jerusalem while the company itself sits on occupied land.
Last year, Ben & Jerry’s announced a boycott of “occupied Palestinian territory.” The decision sparked massive financial blowback for Unilever, as US states enacted anti-BDS divestment laws, pulling hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from the conglomerate.
Pro-Israel activists protest outside of a Ben & Jerry’s shop in Manhattan on August 12, 2021. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel) Ben & Jerry’s Israel and its parent company Unilever struck a deal earlier this year that would see branding rights fall to Israel’s Ben & Jerry’s franchise, disconnecting it from the global brand.
However, the US branch of Ben & Jerry’s has launched a lawsuit in an attempt to block the deal, claiming it would represent a threat to their branding. The judge has not yet ruled on the injunction
Perhaps the Abenaki will sue.
Good strategy. Out-lefting the left.
Washington DC must abandon Occupied Algonquian Territory.
Free Algonquiastine! Death to occupiers!
“Perhaps the Abenaki will sue.”
If the Abenaki want it back, they can try to take it.
My bookie in Vegas says ‘Bad odds’
What sweet, sweet, logical analysis of the situation.
Palestinians be like... “seriously?”
Are the socialist students of US universities calling out the schools for being on Native land>????
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Not really. American schools teach that the land was stolen from Indians. American media depicts Indians as peace-loving victims. And there's all manner of subsidies, legal privileges, and affirmative action in college admissions and government hiring for Indians.
To take Israel's "sweet, sweet logic" to its full conclusion, Israel would have to grant Palestinians similar preference in government hiring, college admissions, positive depictions in textbooks and movies, etc.
By equating Indians to Palestinians, Israel is opening the door to a "logical" conclusion it likely doesn't want.
yep...love it.
Woker than thou.
This isn’t the Israeli government doing this.
Ben and Jerry don’t care. They hate America too
Israeli Arabs do get affirmative action and preferences. There are Arab-only towns in Israel, where Jews dare not move to.
LOL...suck on that B&J!
Almost like they read my tag line.
Good tagline. I would only make one small change to it. Instead of residents, I would say occupiers. 😀🤭🤪😆😂
I like your change.
Been my tag line for years and years.
It’s actually a paraphrase of an Israeli official who responded to Obama telling us we needdd to leave “Arab East Jerusalem”.
“Arab East Jerusalem” is only Arab due to pogroms that started in 1928 and continued through WWII. The Turks, Arabs, then Italians and German backed Arabs killed and drove Jews that had literally lived there for thousands of years from ancestral homes.
It was a good response. Sit on this 👍 and rotate, Mr Obama.
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