Calling Ben & Jerry’s boycott antisemitic is accurate
On Nov. 16, the Orlando Sentinel published a commentary piece titled “Ben & Jerry’s Palestine stance is not antisemitism,” authored by Stephen Day, an adjunct professor at Rollins College. Sadly, such pronouncements often go largely unchallenged when expressed from the bully pulpits and within the echo chambers that exist within university classrooms. Fortunately, here, in the public forum, this insidious article will not go unanswered.
Mr. Day’s hypothesis is grounded upon multiple historical falsehoods. Contrary to his statement, the territories targeted by the Ben & Jerry’s boycott are not on “Palestinian land” but, rather, are within areas that have been disputed since 1967 when Israel, in a defensive war, ended the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria (or, in the modern vernacular, the “West Bank”).
Mr. Day also justifies Ben & Jerry’s stance by using loaded terms such as “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.” Once again, these are terms that, when applied to Israel, have no basis in historical fact.
During the 1948 War of Independence — a war that started with the invasion of Israel by Arab nations of the region with the stated goal of eliminating the Jewish State of Israel — many Arabs fled at the urging of their leaders. Others stayed, resulting in today’s Israeli Arab population of nearly 2 million citizens who serve in the Israeli government, the military, the judicial system, and every facet of Israel’s society and economy.
This is the very antithesis of “apartheid” which, in fact, is a word that aptly describes the complete elimination of Jewish populations throughout the Arab world.
Never answered is the same question that Ben & Jerry’s founders could not answer in a recent interview: if your goal is to improve global human rights, why start with and, in fact, single out Israel? Surely, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is sold in territories with conflicts and claims of inequity far greater than anything that exists in Israel. And yet, as is all too often the case, Israel is the one country subjected to this boycott.
This application of a double-standard against the world’s only Jewish state is, in fact, antisemitism.
This conclusion is not simply ours. Rather, it is part of the definition of the term, “antisemitism,” established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which has been adopted by many governments (including the U.S. State Department) and institutions throughout the world.
The column actively seeks to silence others by declaring accusations of antisemitism are merely an “old trick” that Jewish people have used since the Holocaust. One can only imagine the outcry that would occur if the author made a similar statement describing accusations of racism as a “trick” used by other minority groups here in the United States. Again, the antisemitism of his words are revealed through double-standards and analytical hypocrisy.
Israel is, like any country, an imperfect nation that faces challenges that lead to legitimate disagreements on policy and approach.
On these matters, there can be varying opinions and a valid debate. However, those who simply revise history and seek to deny Israel’s continued right to exist as a Jewish State through boycotts and other similar measures will not go unchallenged, nor will they escape the term that best describes their rhetoric and approach: antisemitism.