The Israeli business owner whose contract with Ben & Jerry’s is being terminated wants Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to take action against the ice cream maker’s parent company, Unilever.
Avi Zinger (pictured above), CEO of Ben & Jerry’s Israel, has asked Bennett to enforce a decade-old law prohibiting boycotts against the Jewish nation by companies supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions political movement. Zinger’s deal with Ben & Jerry’s expires at the end of this year, after the company’s independent board announced last summer it would no longer allow product sales in “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
In a letter, Zinger requested that the prime minister implement Israel’s Boycott Law against Unilever, claiming that they are promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) with one company, while supplying the [Israeli Defense Forces], the government and the State of Israel with goods worth millions of shekels with its other companies.
Zinger wrote: “The [country’s] helplessness in the face of a company that is taking boycott measures is undermining Israel’s deterrent power and will lead not only to fatal damage to Ben & Jerry’s Israel, but to many other businesses in the future. Do not look away and allow a wonderful enterprise to meet its end – [implement] the boycott law.”
The Boycott Law, passed by the Knesset in 2011, enacts immediate sanctions on a boycotting company or organization.
Zinger also has pleaded in recent months with the Israel Competition Authority to enforce anti-BDS laws against Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s.
“Through its longstanding silence and lack of action, Israel is facilitating future boycotts and granting a victory to the BDS movement,” Zinger wrote to Bennett. “Don’t watch from the sidelines and allow a magnificent factory to die. Enact the Anti-Boycott Law and give the boycotting company what it deserves.”
For more information about the Ben & Jerry’s/Israel controversy, visit NLPC’s special website, StopBenAndJerrys.com.