Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s and Antisemitism

Townhall.com this week published a commentary by NLPC chairman Peter Flaherty that called attention to the Twitter activity of Ben & Jerry’s antisemitic chairwoman, Anuradha Mittal, who fills her posts with Hamas sympathizing and Israel condemnation:

Anuradha Mittal/PHOTO: S. Martin (CC)

Mittal has already caused untold controversy for Unilever [parent company of Ben & Jerry’s], most famously by ending ice cream sales in the “occupied territories” of Israel, and more recently observing July 4 by advocating that the United States return “stolen indigenous land.”

 

In the week following the bloody attack on Israel, Mittal unleashed more than thirty tweets, not one of them condemning Hamas. While the nature of Israel’s response to the carnage is a legitimate topic for debate, those who decry it without denouncing the original onslaught do so in bad faith.

 

October 10 was a busy day that Mittal, kicked off by announcing that she is cancelling her subscription to the New York Times for “biased journalism.” Then came a flurry of retweets, one from Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity that has in the past partnered with Hamas. MAP co-founder Dr. Swee Ang Chai in 2014 promoted a film titled “CNN, Goldman Sachs and the Zio Matrix,” produced by former KKK leader David Duke.

 

Another tweet was from Mohammad El-Kurd, a Palestinian journalist who claimed that the report that babies were beheaded in an Israeli kibbutz was a “lie” for which there is “no evidence.”

Nearly two years ago, activist website StopAntisemitism.org announced Mittal was the “Antisemite of the Year.” NLPC investigations, in conjunction with reporters from the New York Post and Washington Free Beacon, found that she supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and is a Hezbollah sympathizer. She also appeared to have violated laws governing self-dealing by acting as a trustee of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation while approving donations to her personal nonprofit where she is executive director taking a full-time salary.

NLPC filed an IRS complaint against Mittal in late 2021.

Read Peter Flaherty’s entire Townhall commentary here.