After Ben & Jerry’s franchisees sent a letter to the board requesting that it reconsider its boycott on Israel, the ice cream company brought in an extreme anti-Israel activist to defend its decision, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
As Ben & Jerry’s franchisees grapple with the fallout of the boycott, 30 store owners sent a letter to Ben & Jerry’s leadership saying that the decision to end sales in Judea and Samaria “not only distorts the situation on the ground—it has imposed, and will to continue to impose, substantial financial costs on all of us.”
In response, Ben & Jerry’s last week brought in anti-Israel author Peter Beinart, who has called for the abolition of Israel, to talk to store owners about Israel’s “illegal occupation.”
Speaking on a conference call, Beinart claimed that Israeli soldiers are sent into Palestinian villages to abduct minors and that Israel illegally occupies territory “it seized from Jordan in an offensive war in 1967.”
Beinart told the Free Beacon that he was invited to speak because he has publicly encouraged boycotts of Israel’s “occupied territories.”
“I wrote a NYT op-ed calling for settlement boycott in 2012. I’ve espoused this view for a long time,” said Beinart.
In July 2020, Beinart wrote another NYT editorial stating: “I no longer believe in a Jewish state.”
Beinart recently revealed in his newsletter that he has “spoken privately to [Ben & Jerry’s] executives and encouraged their efforts” on the boycott campaign, adding that “no one has produced any independent evidence that the company is hostile to Jews.”
Source: (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
