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Home Secretary Ayelet Shaked visited the local Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory in Israel on Wednesday in support after the U.S. company announced earlier this week that it would no longer allow the supply of its products to Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.
Shaked said Israeli authorities were working to enlist help from Jewish and evangelical communities, as well as pro-Israel groups in the United States, to boycott the ice cream maker “until they change their dastardly decision. “.
“Ben & Jerry’s International has chosen to suck the terrorist and anti-Semitic organizations instead of being loyal to its Israeli licensee,” she told the factory in Be’er Tuvia, a community in the south near the city of Kiryat Malakhi.
Shaked said Israel will do all it can in the “legal, consumer and diplomatic arenas” against the American producer to get him to reverse his decision.
On Monday, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would no longer distribute its products in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, apparently referring to settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
He said the move would take effect at the end of 2022, when his contract with the current Israeli manufacturer and distributor expires. The future of Ben & Jerry’s sales across Israel from 2023 remains in question.
At the factory, Shaked urged the Israelis to continue buying locally produced Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, alongside the need to “fight America’s Ben & Jerry’s.”
“We have a year and a half to change this anti-Semitic decision,” she said.
The management of Ben & Jerry’s Global has chosen to lick the terrorist and anti-Semitic organizations, we have a year and a half to change this decision.
Keep buying Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in Israel. pic.twitter.com/3ONLzNLuSCShaken Ayelet (@Ayelet__Shaked) July 21, 2021
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, on Tuesday sent letters to the governors of the 35 American states that have enacted legislation against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, asking them to sanction Ben & Jerry’s for her decision. .
“I urge you to consider denouncing the company’s decision and taking any other relevant action, including with respect to the laws of your state and the commercial relationship between Ben and Jerry’s and your state,” it read. in the letter from Erdan, who said he coordinated the move with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
States that have adopted anti-BDS legislation are Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Texas, but not Vermont, where Ben & Jerry’s headquarters are located.
Speaking at a US State Department press briefing on Tuesday, spokesman Ned Price said he had “no reaction to offer regarding the actions of a private company” when it came to light. asked about the situation, but reiterated that White House officials “strongly reject the BDS movement, which unfairly singles out Israel.
Meanwhile, a growing number of kosher supermarkets in the United States and around the world have announced that they will stop stocking Ben & Jerry’s products as a result of the decision.
Morton Williams, a chain of 16 supermarkets in the New York area, said it would cut the number of Ben & Jerry’s products it sells by 70%, stop promoting them in its weekly flyers and display them in locations hard to find in its stores.
Seasons, which has six stores in and around New York City, said it would remove all Ben & Jerry’s products from its stores, saying, “We stand in solidarity with Israel. Always.”
In Teaneck, New Jersey, home to a large Jewish population, Cedar Market and Glatt Express, as well as Grand & Essex in nearby Bergenfield, New Jersey, said they would stop selling ice cream.
Kosher Kingdom, located in Melbourne, Australia, said it will also stop selling Ben & Jerry’s and offload its remaining stock at a reduced price.
The Sydney-based Kosher Authority announced on Wednesday it was removing Ben & Jerry’s ice cream from its list of approved products to protest the settlement boycott.
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