Israel is worried by Ben & Jerry
JVL Introduction
It’s a month since Ben & Jerry said they would no longer be permitting their ice-cream to be sold in the Occupied Territories. In response, Israel has launched a major attack on the brand.
As Simon Korner says: “Labelling a commercial decision by an ice cream company anti-semitic and an act of terror represents a major escalation, taking the anti-semitism smear to a new level.” But Israel’s hysterical reaction is a sign of weakness, showing it’s losing control of the media narrative.
Ideological cracks among American Jewry are opening up. Trump’s crusade for Israeli apartheid has made it harder than ever to be a liberal zionist. Israel’s brutal response to the Palestinian uprising has deepened the cracks. No wonder Israel is worried.
This article was originally published by The Socialist Correspondent (Facebook page and journal) on Mon 16 Aug 2021. Read the original here.
Israel is worried by Ben & Jerry
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There’s another encouraging historical precedent …
McCarthyism was unassailable in the States … until – quite suddenly – it wasn’t. What followed after McCarthyism was longer lasting “never again” revulsion to what was newly understood to be a baseless witch hunt.
Suggest Ben & Jerry’s should be appointed official supplier of ice cream to the forthcoming Labour Party conference
This is an excellent article!
Totally agree with Ben and Jerry stance on the occupied territories. They are entitled not to support a policy they do not agree with.
Israel is slowly devaluing the term Anti Semitism. Committing daily crimes against the Palestinian People, and any criticism of these actions is termed
“Antisemitism”. Keep up the good work JVL.
On 12th August a small group of protestors marched to B & J’s store in Times Square to protest the boycott. Among them was End Jew Hatred activist Virág Gulyás, who declared that in boycotting Israeli settlements, Ben & Jerry’s was engaged in virtue signaling. “But unfortunately they are signaling the wrong virtues,” she said, adding that the position by the ice cream firm amounted to “cultural genocide.”
More shrill hyperbole, obviously, but it goes further than that. Smarting at the charge of genocide aimed at Israel, Gulyás instinctively adopts the classic defence against a plausible accusation, that of deflection — turning the accusation against the accuser. Much the same tactic is typically used by Donald Trump: when (as often happens) someone calls him stupid he punches back by calling them moronic. Needless to say, this is a transparent device which fools no-one apart from Trump’s most devoted fans. In the case of Israel we should take it as a sure sign that the pressure put on Israel by the international campaign for Palestinian rights is beginning to bite, and needs to be kept up, particularly when Israel engages in a charm offensive. The other day I came across an article in an Israel-friendly publication challenging progressives opposed to the new Israeli Government to recognize the wide diversity of Bennett’s coalition, and in particular the inclusion of two Arab Israelis. We should not be taken in by such arguments — the optics of a diverse line-up is no substitute for policies aimed at creating a real democracy which accepts Palestinians as equal citizens with equal rights.
I wonder if UK Labour Party will expel B&J ice -cream eaters too.
In the mainstream media so little mention is made of the fact that Ben and jerry are “proud Jews” or that they want to continue to sell their ice cream within Israel’s democratic borders ……but not outside them as that would be in furtherance of the (UN denounced) spread of illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Where is the incisive investigative and campaigning journalism of the liberal press? Where are the condemning statements from the leadership of Labour, Lib Dems and Greens in the UK on the illegal actions of an occupying power? Why does the oppression of Liberal and progressive Jews and their political views go unopposed?
This is a very serious subject and this article shows how ridiculous the Israeli Officials are, their language is staggering.
Israel is bulldozing Palestinian Farms and Villages at an alarming rate, right across the West Bank from the Jordan to the Med’. They bomb Gaza regularly using HiTec missiles, they’ve created the largest concentration camp in the World in Gaza. All this and they scream victim, because the illegal settlers can’t have an ice cream, if it wasn’t so serious, it would be hilarious.