PRESS RELEASE: BOYCOTT BEN & JERRY’S ICE CREAM

Contact: Sarah Stern

202.601.7422

sstern@emetonline.org

We at EMET were shocked to learn that Ben and Jerry’s ice cream has decided to stop selling to stores in what they term “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.” This is yet another shallow attempt at “virtue signaling” and comes out of sheer ignorance regarding the long and “rocky road” of the history of the conflict. Like the product it sells, replete with empty calories and devoid of nutritional value, this is high in patting oneself on the back and totally devoid of substance.

We call on everyone, therefore, to boycott Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and to work with us on re-introducing and finally passing the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, a bill that was first introduced by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH), but died in the 115th Congress.

It is unfortunate that those behind the decision are oblivious to the fact that the Palestinians could have had an independent Palestinian state a long time ago, side by side with Israel, had they ever simply accepted the myriad of offers given to them.

Starting in 1937, the Peel Commission suggested an independent Jewish state, a Palestinian state and a “Holy Basin,” for religious sites. The Arab League rejected that, simply because they opposed the idea of a Jewish state. In 1947, the United Nations wanted to partition the land into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Again, the Arab League rejected it and waged war on the fledgling Jewish enterprise.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization was created before the 1967 war in 1964. Therefore, this has nothing to do with any “settlements” outside the green line; they simply wanted to eradicate any Jewish presence in the land of Israel.

On July 25, 2000, an exceedingly generous offer was made at a summit with Chairman Yassir Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, and President Bill Clinton, in which Israel offered 97% of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), with a “right of return” of thousands of Palestinian refugees, and a division of the Old City of Jerusalem into Israeli and Palestinian segments. The Palestinians neither agreed nor disagreed, but simply walked away from the negotiating table.

This offer was only exceeded in 2008, by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen at Sharim al Sheik, where they offered to give back almost the entirety of the West Bank and the partition of Jerusalem on a demographic basis. The Palestinians rejected this offer as well.

In 2005, in the absence of a willing Palestinian peace partner, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the entirety of the Gaza strip, uprooting more than 8,000 Jews from their homes, and offering the Palestinians the ability to prove to the world, once and for all, that they could exist side-by-side in peace and democracy. Rabbis offered to give the synagogues to be turned into mosques, because as they said, “We all pray to the same God.” Some Jews of means purchased the greenhouses so that the “nascent Palestinian state would have some sort of economic infrastructure.” The minute the blue and white Israeli flag was lowered, and the last IDF soldier closed the gate, those greenhouses and synagogues were destroyed in a hate-infested display of anarchy. They simply reviled Jews so much they wanted to rid Gaza of any remnant of a Jewish presence.

After a brief power-sharing arrangement between Fatah and Hamas, Hamas violently took control of Gaza in 2007. It is now an outpost of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the site from which thousands of missiles balloons and kites with incendiary devices attached to them have been launched into Israeli residential communities, to wreak havoc and obliterate the Jewish state.

Says Sarah Stern, Founder, and President of EMET, “It is a horrible shame that so many of the so-called “woke” people have never bothered to educate themselves about the basic facts and history of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. If they had, they would realize that it is not the settlements that are the reason for the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but the absolute refusal of the Palestinians to negotiate in good faith and accept any one of their very generous offers. The folks behind this decision should stick to ice cream making, and please spare us from their virtue signaling.”

To contact your member of Congress about re-introducing and passing the Israel Anti-Boycott Legislation, please dial (202) 224-3121. Every voice counts.

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