If you boycott Israel, consumers will think you’re on the terrorists’ side, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said to a delegation of ambassadors to the US and UN visiting Israel on Thursday.
“Whoever thinks of turning boycotting the State of Israel into a matter of marketing or branding will find that it was the worst business decision they made,” Bennett warned, days after Ben & Jerry’s announced it would no longer sell its ice cream in the West Bank.
“The consumers, certainly in Israel, but also in the US and other countries, don’t think it’s cool to take Hamas’s side,” the prime minister added. “We use all the means we have to act against this, including legal ones.”
Bennett said those who boycott Israel are punishing it for “the sin… of fighting terror” and will pay a price.
Ben & Jerry's has operated in Israel for close to 35 years, with a factory in Be'er Tuvia. On Tuesday, Ben & Jerry's announced that it would no longer sell its products in the "Occupied Palestinian Territories," and was ending its contract with its Israeli licensee, which refused to participate in the boycott, when it expires in 2022. The statement said they would look for a new arrangement and continue to sell its products in Israel.
The Vermont-based company's independent board, however, released a statement of its own saying the previous statement came from Unilever, which owns Ben & Jerry’s, and does not reflect their position, which is to end sales in Israel entirely.
Ambassador to the US and UN Gilad Erdan said that “at this time, when businesses are surrendering to BDS pressure and bringing anti-Israel political considerations into their decisions, the visit of UN ambassadors to Israel is especially important.”
Erdan, in cooperation with the American Zionist Movement, B'nai B'rith International and March of the Living, brought the delegation of 10 ambassadors to Israel a week ago to visit sites around the country and receive security briefings at Israel's northern border and near Gaza, where they also met residents of communities struck by Hamas rocket fire.
Among the countries whose representatives were on the trip were Australia, Argentina, Ukraine, Kenya, Guatemala, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Dominican Republic, Tonga and Bhutan, with which Israel established ties in the past year.
Erdan said the ambassadors told him that, following the trip, they would influence their countries to stand with Israel and against hypocrisy and discrimination against the Jewish state, which is rampant in the UN.
Earlier this week, Erdan sent a letter to the governors of 35 states that have anti-boycott laws, reminding them that Ben & Jerry's decision is in violation of their laws. Most of the anti-boycott laws would require the state to stop entering into contracts with Ben & Jerry's, and possibly even with Unilever.
Soon after the boycott was announced, Bennett spoke with Unilever CEO Alan Jope, saying he views it with the "utmost gravity" and that it will have "severe consequences, including legal ones."
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called the decision a “shameful surrender to antisemitism, to BDS and to all that is wrong with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse.”