Top-ranking officials in Florida and Texas rebuked the ice cream maker after it announced it would no longer sell its products in the West Bank, which it referred to as the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Israeli officials slammed the decision as being anti-Israel and antisemitic.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and State Comptroller Glenn Hegar echoed that sentiment, threatening to add the ice cream company and its parent, Unilever, to a blacklist of organizations that boycott Israel permanently, making it ineligible for investments from the state’s pension fund.
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A spokesperson for Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, which has a similar law on the books, called the decision from Ben & Jerry's “disgraceful and an insult to America’s closest ally in the Middle East.”
--------------------------------Florida and Texas threaten Ben & Jerry's with anti-BDS laws over West Bank pullout
Public officials in at least two Republican-led states vocalized support for Israel in its dispute with Ben & Jerry’s, threatening to invoke state laws to punish companies that advocate or act to boycott, divest, or sanction the key U.S. ally.news.yahoo.com
The Israeli government is launching a legal attack against Ben and Jerry’s over the company’s plan to stop selling ice cream in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as well as in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel’s ambassador to the United States has asked 35 U.S. governors to enforce state laws which make it a crime to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS. Meanwhile, Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma has called on his state to block the sale of Ben and Jerry’s, claiming the company’s new policy violates Oklahoma’s anti-BDS law. Ben & Jerry’s has said that continuing to sell ice cream in the settlements would be “inconsistent with our values.”
The Israelis are in violation of international law.