July 19, 2021
Sean Greenwood
Grand Poobah of Public Relations
Ben & Jerry’s
Dear Mr. Greenwood,
I see that the Palestinian victimhood machine got to you guys and convinced you not to sell ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
I won’t bore you with a dissertation why Israel’s claim to these areas is legitimate, that evidence is available to you, but to ask you if this is the first time your company has boycotted countries and territories that carry out human rights violations like China that is carrying out a genocide against its Muslim population, or Nigeria in which gangs of roving Jihadists are kidnapping Christian children and murdering Christian elders while burning down their homes and churches.
I could go on and on, but I think you get my drift. If Israel’s crime is to hold onto land that it claims belongs to it while the Palestinians who seem adept at getting corporations like Ben & Jerry’s to do the fighting for them refuse to negotiate a settlement, then punishing Israel for standing pat while the Palestinians refuse to negotiate hardly fit’s the crime. Applying one standard to Israel and another to the rest of the world makes Ben & Jerry’s hypocrites of the first order. Please tell me that you stopped selling ice cream to other countries for moral reasons so I can resume eating your wonderful flavors.
By the way, there are Arabs living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Did it ever occur to you that your boycott would deny them the pleasure of Ben & Jerry’s glida (ice cream in Hebrew)?
Sincerely yours,
Larry Shapiro