IT STARTED SIMPLY ENOUGH, Ben & Jerry’s social conscience board, led by “I am not an anti-Semite” Anuradha Mittal wanted to boycott Israel.
Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s current owner — it bought Ben & Jerry’s AND the social conscience board from Nestle — was agreeable to boycotting only Ben and Jerry products in what the social conscience board calls “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” a/k/a OPT.
Ben & Jerry’s Israeli franchise owner intends to continue selling his product wherever there is a market, and that includes all of Israel.
Unilever intended to cancel the contract with the Israeli franchise in December 2022, but due to the various boards’ actions, the franchise may be terminated sooner rather than later.;
Ben and Jerry, the original owners, are fine with “not an anti-Semite” Anuradha Mittal’s proposal to boycott all of Israel.
THE PROBLEM for Ms. Mittal and England’s Unilever is that boycotts are less and less popular.
In the U.S., where Unilever has a major presence, a number of states have laws banning investment by boycotting companies as well as banning products from those boycotting companies.
As for Israel, it has enough local ice cream producers to keep it’s citizens happy, plus it also imports ice cream — including other Unilever products (see table, below).
What is Unilever risking?
Unilever lists all its products at https://www.unilever.com/
A good many of the products are sold in Israel and in the United States.
The following table lists a sampling of Unilever’s products.
| Product | Product | Product |
|---|---|---|
| Ben & Jerry's | Helmann's | Day 2 |
| Breyers | Knorr | Dove |
| Carte d'Or | Lipton | Lifebouy |
| Klondike | Popsicle | Lux |
| Magnum | Alberto Balsam | Q-tips |
| Viennetta | Axe | Camel |
| Cornetto | Brut | Winston |
Unilever seems to invest in a lot of tea and ice cream companies. The first six in Col. 1 all are ice cream. (I thought about including Popsicle, but “real” Popsciles are frozen flavored water on a stick — I happen to LIKE Popscicles.)
Interesting that the English company also invests heavily in soaps and deodorants.
The table is just a partial list of Unilever products; many are found only in Europe.
A number of stores around the world have pulled Ben & Jerry’s ice cream from their shelves.
If the stores extend their discontent to all Unilever products, image the impact on the company and its stockholders.
Will Unilever stockholders tolerate a Ben & Jerry’s dictatorship on the value of their shares?
Gold plated arches
Meanwhile, Israeli media (and maybe elsewhere, too) “discovered” that the so-called OPT also lack a McDonalds.
The McDonald’s franchisee is an Israel leftist who may avoid putting Golden Arches in all parts of Israel, but, apparently McDonald’s HQ limits where the Israeli can open stores. According to Israeli media, the hamburger chain fails to include all of Israel in the Israeli’s franchise.
There are about 180 copies of the Golden Arches in Israel, of which less than a third are under Kosher supervision.
While I do not dine at McDonalds, even “kosher” McDonalds, I have seen Ronald’s hamburgers; small nothings. One of my son’s, visiting Israel, tried the McDonald’s in Bet Shean; it was a novelty — a kosher McDonald’s — nothing more. He did not return.
There are better burgers everywhere.
Burgers are not the typical Israeli’s fare. Shwarma, even falafel is more often the choice for a quick meal. McDonald’s advertising beings in the kid’s business once or twice, but as their diets expand, the Golden Arches prove less and less appealing.
Should McDonald’s be avoided? Is Burger King a better option for a chain burger? What about other possibilities in the neighborhood?
The question for the places that want to punish companies for boycotting all or parts of Israel: is the boycott blatant, a la Ben & Jerry’s, or concealed as in the case of McDonalds.
Israeli’s problem
Foregoing — dare I write “boycotting — Ben & Jerry’s in Israel, or McDonalds in Israel means that Israelis — Arabs, Jews, others — will be out of a job.
The Israeli Ben & Jerry’s franchise employs about 160 Israelis.
Add to those employees the organizations that sell raw materials to Ben & Jerry’s; local dairy farms lead the list of providers.
Israel, while ahead of most of the world, still is recovering from the Chinese virus and its latest variation.
The national budget has been hard hit. Putting more people on the dole puts more strain on the budget.
Whether it is Ben & Jerry’s or McDonalds, Israelis cannot afford to boycott Israeli enterprises, regardless of corporate misbehavior.
Such “I am not an anti-Semite” behavior must be punished by places that won’t put people on the unemployment line.
Misbehavior also can be punished by fund managers who refuse to accept the offender’s money; who remove the offenders from retirement funds (and similar) and their benefits.
As for this scrivener, I will enjoy better ice cream and shwarma elsewhere.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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