Ben & Jerry boycott could hurt Palestinian employees

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Ben & Jerry’s decision to halt sales of their ice cream in the West Bank will hurt Palestinian workers who work for the main West Bank ice cream distributor, Hen Israel, the distributor’s vice president, warned in an interview on Wednesday.

Israel is vice chairman of the Sagi Group, which operates in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone outside of Jerusalem and employs around 45 people. The Sagi Group distributes around two tonnes of ice cream every week in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The company employs 10 Palestinians from neighboring villages who receive working conditions and wages they could not earn under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, according to Israel, which stressed that the decision would harm Palestinian workers if the share of the company in the distribution of ice cream is lost.

Israeli explained that the company has already started to assess the situation to understand what impact it will have on the company. “I market other products, but ice cream is an important part for me. You have to understand that such a decision harms first and foremost the employees, less the company as a whole,” he told Ynet . “The State of Israel must react and help in this struggle. Although the owners of Ben & Jerry’s have said they will work to find a solution that allows the Israeli franchise to continue selling ice cream outside the West Bank, the company’s board of directors said they had demanded a boycott of Israel in general.

Avi Zinger, owner of the Ben & Jerry’s Israel franchise – which has always sold its ice cream on both sides of the Green Line – has for years resisted pressure from the parent company to boycott West Bank settlements. Politicians and activists have called for continuing to buy Ben & Jerry’s in Israel in order to support the Israeli franchise.

It wouldn’t be the first time that boycotts against Israel have harmed Palestinians.

Some 500 Palestinian employees lost their jobs at SodaStream after the company moved from Mishor Admumim to a campus in the Idan Negev industrial zone after being targeted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, although the CEO of the The company says the move was due to a need for expansion, not pressure by BDS. Some 74 Palestinians were able to continue working at the Negev factory after the move.

Nabil Basherat, a Palestinian who works as a manager at SodaStream, said Israel Hayom in 2018, that the “global BDS campaign has done more harm than good to the Palestinians,” adding that BDS pressure led to thousands of Palestinians losing their jobs when the Mishor Adumim factory closed.

Nadia Aloush, a Palestinian who works as a manager at the Mishor Admumim branch of the Rami Levy supermarket chain, also expressed her opposition to BDS. “They want Rami Levy to close his stores, but I ask – who will employ Palestinians instead? The Palestinian Authority did not offer jobs to Palestinians who worked in SodaStream. I don’t understand why the world continues to donate. In addition to this, you need to know more about it.[to the PA] when he fails to even provide jobs for his people, ”said Aloush Israel Hayom.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.



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