Ben & Jerry's: Boycotts, BDS and me.

The Ice Cream Kerfuffle

Should I eat Ben & Jerry's, or not?

This week Unilever's ice cream brand, Ben & Jerry's, announced that it will not renew its current franchise license in Israel because the local franchisee will not stop selling their ice cream across the "Green Line," in what the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement calls Occupied Palestine. 

Ben & Jerry's also clearly stated that they will remain committed to Israel, where they have a production factory and a strong market share, with a new franchise owner who will play by their rules.  

In response, the Prime Minister of Israel, a slew of other top Israeli officials and pro-Israel people in Israel and America began publicly declaring a counter boycott of Ben & Jerry's ice cream everywhere.  Viral videos showed people of all ages throwing out their Ben & Jerry's, with accusations of anti-Semitism and bias.

As a fact based and reasonable person who loves ice cream and Israel, I need to look at this closely and make a fact based and reasonable approach to my next diet-breaking choice of which chocolate chunk fudge brand I am going to eat.

Question #1:  Do I believe in consumer boycotts?  

In a word, 'no.'

They really don't work, and they are annoying.  I believe in engagement and influence rather than boycotts.  Sure, multinational corporations don't like bad press, so you can definitely hurt them and get in the papers. And that makes protesters feel good.  And then you can go after colleges and investors to remove those corporations from their portfolios with the same outcome.  But the facts on the ground are not changed when people are denied Nestle, Coca-Cola or Ben & Jerry's. They are a distraction, not a solution.  I believe this to be true whether I am asked to boycott Ben & Jerry's for selling in the West Bank, or to boycott Ben & Jerry's for not selling in the West Bank. There is no impact either way and the boycott calls only serve to amplify the extreme voices around the topic.  Can you hurt companies and their stock values?  Absolutely.  But that doesn't bring better health care, civil rights or prosperity to the people of the region.

Question #2:  Where is Ben & Jerry's refusing to sell?   

"Across the Green Line" is everything Israel conquered in 1967, and includes most of the Old City of Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, and the entire "West Bank."  All of that includes Jewish neighborhoods, towns and cities very roughly totaling nearly 1,000,000 Israelis and about 3,000,000 Palestinians.  The complex network of roads, public transport, and checkpoints has been a sticking point for decades.  This area is comprised by autonomous areas under the Palestinian Authority, areas under Israeli military control, Israeli towns and cities, and open areas of undeveloped land.  The final status of this region remains in dispute and is the subject of internal debate on every level:  in the Israeli population; between Israelis and Palestinians; and internationally.  Israel has formally annexed some parts, such as East Jerusalem and some of the surrounding Israeli towns.  

Question #3:  Is anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism?  

In a word, 'yes.' 

This is subtle, so hang on for a moment.  Denying the Jewish people their right to national statehood as a people is a form of bias and prejudice.  However, rejecting particular political or military policies of a government is not.  One must not confuse any contempt for political or military actions of Israel with denial of the legitimacy of Israel to exist.  Atrocities against slaves, indigenous peoples, or in Vietnam did not mean that America was illegitimate.  It meant America was doing atrocious things which demanded change.  Those involved in calls for Justice need to be aware that much of the Palestinian political voice is not calling for justice, but naming Israel itself as an injustice.  That is a form of Anti-Semitism.  Let's focus on political policy, civil rights, conflict resolution, economic equity and military de-escalation.  If those topics are not sufficient to create peace, then we really are talking about the obliteration of an enemy - prejudice and bias.

Question #4:  Is opposing settlements across the Green Line the same as opposing Israel itself?  

In a word, 'no.' 

There is a strong and persistent internal voice in Israeli politics that has been opposed to the expanded Israeli settlement of territory in the West Bank.  The Likud party has been a strong advocate for settlements since the days of Menachem Begin in the 1970's and beyond.  PM Netanyahu, a Likud leader, continued and accelerated that policy under his historically long tenure as Prime Minister.  But parties like Labor, Meretz and others strongly disagree and would offer back huge portions, and perhaps even all of the "occupied territories" for genuine peace, if a realistic agreement could be forged.  Oslo demonstrated that willingness, but has fallen off the table since.  The dispassionate fact is that there is a legitimate pro-Israel voice in Israeli politics that does not equate the West Bank or even East Jerusalem with the rest of the country.  Only the supporters of the vast expansion in the last few decades equate the two, and would want us to believe that they are one and the same.  They are not, as a simple matter of facts on the ground.  Therefore, it is legitimate to divide the issue.

Question #5:  Is Ben & Jerry's "Anti-Israel?"  

In a word, 'no.'  

I am opposed to the Ben & Jerry's boycott.  I believe it reflects a simplistic look at the map of the West Bank - an "all or nothing, win/lose" view of the post-1967 territories and their history occupation and settlement.  Those who say that all Israeli settlements are the same as "Israel" are projecting their own political point of view on the rest of the Israeli population.  They are just as wrong as those who say that all of Israel is "Occupied Palestine."  I believe that consumer boycotts are ultimately ineffective, unnecessarily divisive and a lot of noise with little substance.  But they have asserted their presence in Israel, and their commitment to being a participant on the ground in the Israeli economy.  They have the right, as a business, to stay out of a conflict if they chose to try.  They have probably learned that there is no "win" here, so it would have been better to let people eat their product everywhere.  But opposing the Israeli presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is not anti-Semitism.  It is politics.  

The most important question:  Am I going to continue to eat Ben & Jerry's?  

In a word, 'yes.' 

I will eat Ben & Jerry's because it is delicious, and more importantly they have great parve flavors to serve with my meat meals.  Show me a better product and I will buy it.  In the meantime, this too will fade back as more important topics demand our attention.  So enjoy the kerfuffle if you like.  In the meantime, I'm going to have that chocolate chunk fudge I was telling you about.  

Oh yeah, and then there is all of that less newsworthy real work to be done to defend Israel's right to exist in a relationship of peace and equity internally and externally with her Palestinian neighbors.  But hey, let's talk more about ice cream, right?

Final Day - Always wanting more

Today is Day 3 of our whirlwind.  Today we travel to Lod and Abu Gosh, both "mixed" cities in Israel with Jewish and Arab communities in large numbers.  This was was the day I was looking forward to from the beginning.  Let me explain why.

As you may know, the scariest thing for most Israelis about the 11 days of open warfare between Israel and Hamas was the rioting that happened inside the mixed cities of Israel proper, like Acco, Lod, Yafo, Haifa and more.  The internal breakdown of civility marked a new event for Israelis of any religious or cultural background, and this new rift is the one that will ultimately determine if Israel is or is not the democracy that we believe it to be. We know how to deal with Hamas' rockets, no matter how traumatic and terrible that entire event was.  The ongoing conflict about what's beyond the 1967 borders is also known.   But the riots - Arab/Jewish or Jewish/Arab - looked like something that could linger, or (God forbid) grow.

Yet, in the 2 weeks since the cease fire, the unheard of finally happened: an Arab party openly joined a coalition to form a government and receive leadership roles.  Mansour Abbas' Islamicist Ra'am party decided that waiting for the West Bank or Gazan Palestinian leaders under the PA or Hamas to produce tangible benefits was no longer worth it.  Ra'am saw that they could topple Netanyahu, gain legitimate political authority and power, and secure massive financial allocations to the Arab population within Israel, so they made the leap.  A desperate Netanyahu had asked Ra'am to join him in a coalition to stay in power just before the war, so all Israel now knew that it was a "legitimate" choice for any other Israeli parties to make the same offer. They did, and the move blew up in Bibi's face. Ra'am joined the opposition in forming the "Government of Change."  This government will be formally sworn in this Sunday.

So this was the day I was waiting for.  I needed to understand why, not how, the riots happened within Israel.  And will it happen again?  Or is an Arab party in the government a ray of hope for Israeli Arabs - perhaps for Israeli democracy as a whole?  And will Arab and Jewish citizens ever be socially, financially and practically equal in Israeli society?

                                             

I draw your attention to a chart of Israel's demography.  Note that Jews are the majority in most places, and that Israel is an almost equally split society with Muslims and Christians in the North.  In the West Bank, of course, the story is the reverse.  And Gaza is not a part of the picture because it is outside of Israel or Israeli control completely.  

So, with stunning questions, real fears, and a strange amount of hope, I boarded the bus for Lod.

Lod is in-between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the town was meant to be an Arab enclave of the final two-state proposal in 1947, surrounded on 3 sides by the Jewish state. Like Ashkelon, which we visited on day one, it fell behind the Armistice line of 1949.  Palestinians who speak of the “1967 lines” have effectively accepted these areas as being a permanent part if Israel.  

So, Lod does have its history of injustice and inequality.  During the War of Independence, Jews fled from Palestinian/Jordanian sovereignty.  Lod remained largely mixed before during and after the war.  And while most Palestinian refugees fled from the war, in the hope that the Arab states would quickly win,  many Palestinians were also forcibly removed from their homes and villages.  This was true in Lod, as clearly documented by Ari Shavit's My Promised Land, which is necessary reading for all.  I believe that there can never be full peace until the full stories of 1948 and 1967 are told, and they are coming out more and more.  Only truth can lead to reconciliation.  And we aren't there yet.  

Yet since 1949, Lod has always been a mixed town with at least three communities, each socioeconomically different from the other.  There is a very large marginalized Arab community.  Education is poor. Employment is scarce. Drugs are rampant. And crime is terrible in that part of the community.  Those neighborhoods are not "mixed." There is also a small, economically self-sufficient Arab community that lives in the other areas - the nicer areas - of town.  And there is the Jewish community of seculars and modern Orthodox who live typical Israeli lives.   Their pre-riot belief was that the last two communities equally believed that a peaceful shared society exists already.  This is the presumption that we came to look at.

We met with a Jewish family who moved to Lod for the multicultural society.  They felt that their prior Jewish neighborhood was stifling and homogeneous.  They wanted to be part of the more complex and interesting Israel.  They moved to Lod, in part, for the Arabs.

                                  

We met with a young Arab muslim, wearing western style clothing, who teaches in a Jewish school.  She moved out of the "bad" neighborhood to the "better" neighborhood for safety and for a better life for her and her kids.  She drives her children 45 minutes away from Lod every day to attend a school that teaches them in Arabic, but with a curriculum and quality of teaching that she knows is superior to what is available to them in the Arabic schools in Lod.

                                                        

The two women, one Jewish and one Muslim, had very different experiences.  The Jewish couple had an aura of shock, even betrayal at what happened on their very street and in their neighborhood.  They showed us pictures of the "triangle of peace" where a church, mosque and synagogue had lived side by side for generations.  The synagogue was gutted by arson in the riot.  The church and mosque were not harmed.  What started with the Sheikh Jarah protests,  escalated with the temple mount conflicts, moved on to the Hamas rockets  and then came to this.  She asked herself if she was naive? Maybe, yet sincere as well, was my impression.

The Jewish couple spoke of  a time when a neighbor asked if they had come to turn the city Jewish.  They were shocked.  They had left the pure Jewish world to live differently.  But from viewpoint of the Arab in Lod, the reaction was an obvious one: outside Jews moving in are seen as a threat.  This is the backdrop for Sheikh Jarrah resonates with.

So it is not surprising that the Arab woman told us how it began with everyone gathering in peaceful solidarity for Sheikh Jarah in the last days of Ramadan.  The story of a Jewish group driving out a Palestinian family from an East Jerusalem neighborhood is powerful for Palestinians and resonates with them no matter where they live.  Even in Lod, where Israelis many believe the shared society is working, they have memories of other families who were driven away from Lod in 1948.  They also have a history of "collaborators" that were settled in Lod, unwelcome in other Palestinian areas.  They have the larger narrative of disadvantage and marginalization within Israeli society.  The woman spoke of trying to buy an apartment in the nice side of town, but being discriminated against by people not wanting to sell to an Arab.  She changed her name and her appearance to "pass" for Jewish, but when they met her husband - more visibly Arab than she - the meetings were cancelled and the deals were off.  Finally she met someone willing to sell and they bought.  "Isn't that illegal?" a member of the American group asked. "Yes." she said simply, with nervous and derisive laughter.

So we came to see the mixed society living peacefully, betrayed by violence and riots.  Both women joined a protest together against the violence.  Both women want the shared society.  But the starting points are very different.  There is, quite simply, gross inequity between them.

I was left wanting more.... but of course it would be ridiculous to expect that I would leave feeling satisfied.  No sane person should be satisfied today.  Not with Israeli Jews.  Not with Israeli Arabs.  Not with the Palestinians.  We are all in conflict inside ourselves, among our peers, and with those who oppose our dreams.  The conflict is real,  and ongoing, so we are all unsatisfied.

Talking with these two women, and trying for a moment to see the world through their eyes, it felt like looking at the universe through a keyhole.  I am not seeing enough. Yet what I do see is true.  And I realize, that is the basis of the misunderstandings about Israel here and in America.  People simply don't know enough, but are talking, yelling, protesting as if they did.

From Lod we went to Abu Gosh, another mixed town. We visited Hinam, an organization bringing together people of different backgrounds to live as groups in each other's communities for lengthy periods of time.  The idea is that you need to know someone, their family, town, food, background and everything in their system and environment before you can ever really know them.  At best it leads to the shared equitable society we all work and pray for.  At worst, if you have conflicts, at least you won't hate each other.  You will have a relationship.  Out of this idea, they have study sessions, community programs and more.... a beautiful idea.  Sadly, as we were there, large forest fires in the area were set by arsonists... and who knows yet why.  How fitting to be sitting in the wake of a war, talking about our hard work and hopes, while smoke and ash was in the air.

    

Another startling thing happened in the new government coalition.  The Labor party, down to only a handful of seats, has a Reform Rabbi seated in the Kenesset in the new government.  We don't know what portfolio MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv will yet have, but it should be something to do with diaspora affairs and/or Jewish identity.  What a welcome change from the Haredi parties of the last several coalitions who put extreme Orthodox voices in charge of those areas even as the relationship between American Jews and the State of Israel declined on identity topics.  We met with MK Rabbi Kariv in our hotel.

And then... well... dinner and off to the airport.  Home we go, with our minds and our hearts still reeling.  I will speak more about the lessons I learned and my hope for Israel this Shabbat morning, parshat Korach, in synagogue.  I hope you will join me.

Goodbye Jerusalem - back to New Jersey.