Dinapoli right to drop Unilever over Israel stance

The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News:

Ben & Jerry’s has the right to end sales in what it considers “occupied Palestinian territory” (which, under the UN definition the ice cream company cites, includes East Jerusalem). But those who revile the borderline anti-semitic practice of boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel, isolating one and only one country for alleged human rights violations while leaving far more egregious offenders untouched, have a parallel right to push back.

Thursday night, state Comptroller Tom Dinapoli did so, announcing that New York would be dropping pensioners’ holdings in the Vermont brand’s parent company, Unilever, after finding that it had engaged in BDS.

When it sheds its $111 million Unilever stake, consistent with Dinapoli’s 2016 policy, New York’s $268 billion fund will join counterparts in Florida, New Jersey and Arizona in freezing out a company that chose to freeze out a vital American ally. Just deserts.

The same message, that illinformed, double-standard attacks on the world’s only Jewish state will meet strong, principled resistance, is hopefully getting through thick skulls at CUNY’S Professional Staff Congress.

Earlier this year, the union’s Delegate Assembly representing around 30,000 faculty and staff passed a resolution calling Israel an “apartheid,” “settler colonial” state guilty of “the massacre of Palestinians” for responding to Hamas terrorism (which, of course, it conveniently failed to mention). The cavalier smears have rightly sparked hundreds of resignations from the union.

The usual suspects are in the throes of a new round breathless condemnations of Israel — and fresh calls for BDS — in the wake of its designation of six Palestinian NGOS as “terrorist organizations” on the grounds that they raise money for the unapologetically criminal Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. That move warrants real scrutiny. It should begin with a deep dive into publicly available evidence of ties, and Israel’s release of what informed its determination.

When it sheds its $111 million Unilever stake, New York’s fund will be freezing out a company that chose to freeze out a vital American ally.