Opuscula Will Unilever learn Boycotting Israel Is a risk to business ?

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?

Diner’s choice: Skimpy burger or Filling Swarma (Internet images)

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.

 

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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.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

 

 

 

Comment on Unilever

Opuscula Not anti-Semite’s Public posts belie Truth she would hide

‘I’m a victim of online hate, I’m not anti-Semitic’ complains Anuradha Mittal, the chair of Ben & Jerry’s board of directors.

Apparently her desire to have Ben & Jerry’s boycott Israel — watered down by Ben & Jerry’s corporate owner, England’s Unilever to “just” the Jewish settlements across the so-called “green line” has brought a plethora of uncomplimentary comments, ergo the whine: “‘I’m a victim of online hate.”

 

THE PROBLEM MS. MITTAL FACES is that there is an abundance of evidence that she is, indeed, either anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, if one is to split hairs. Or, to take a positive spin on her position, she is an ignorant booster of the PLO/PFLP and Hamas.

According to an article in Israel National News (https://tinyurl.com/7n9se3kp) — obviously a biased, untrustworthy source — citing Stop Anti-Semitism, Mittal has racked up no less than 100 tweets in recent years specifically criticizing Israel, including one which referred to the birth of the country as a “catastrophe.”

The Israeli source notes that During May 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls, Mittal responded to a statement by President Joe Biden which said Israel had the right to defend itself.

“Defend itself against what? Stop condoning war crimes and apartheid,” she wrote.

It is blatantly obvious that Ms. Mittal knows nothing about war crimes or apartheid.

Never mind that the war crimes were committed by Hamas firing missiles at Israeli civilians — and managing to indiscriminately kill both non-combatant Arabs and Jews without declaring war on Israel — both prohibited by international conventions. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime)

As far apartheid, it does not exist in Israel. There is zero government support or approval of discrimination due to religion, race, or sex, a requirement for apartheid by any definition. There is personal prejudice against this group or that group, but it is just that, “personal.” It is neither sanctioned nor condoned by the government.

There are jobs that Muslims (vs. Arabs in general) have limited opportunities. Such jobs typically involve national security. On the other hand, non-Muslim Arabs have found work everywhere in Israel since its founding.

Last week, Mittal told NBC News that Ben & Jerry’s had planned a full-blown boycott of Israel, but their parent company, Unilever, intervened and changed the statement at the last minute to read that their products would still be available in Israel “proper.”

She insinuated that Unilever’s business decision to continue operating in Israel, despite Ben & Jerry’s objections, was inherently racist and sexist.

“I can’t stop thinking that this is what happens when you have a board with all women and people of color who have been pushing to do the right thing,” she said.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

Ben & Jerry’s board is “all women and people of color.” The way she phrased her words, it appears that “this is what happens when you have a board with all women and people of color who have been pushing to do the right thing,” that the “right thing” to do is NOT boycott Israel.

I understand she is pillorying the English company’s management for preventing her from a total boycott of the Israeli Ben & Jerry’s franchise with her convoluted sentence.

Unilever might have been spared conflict with the governments of several U.S. states as well as the federal government; it could have had all Unilever products banned in certain states had Ms. Mittal succeeded in her ignorance.

AS IT HAPPENS, The Israeli Ben & Jerry’s franchise promises to continue selling to all markets (her action may have voided the franchise contract in any case), and Israel has an abundance of local ice cream manufacturers and also imports ice creams — there is no shortage of ice cream in Israel. (There are some Israelis who prefer another local brand, claiming it is better than Ben & Jerry’s.)

I understand the “democratic” PLO/PFLP — which has not had an election for the top job in 15 years! — and its leftist sycophants appealed to Ms. Mittal to initiate the boycott.

Question for Ms. Mittal

When was the last time you were in Israel? Were you ever in a PLO/PFLP or Hamas-controlled community?

Is there any reason Ben & Jerry’s, with help from its owner-du-jour, cannot help the “Palestinians” set up their own Ben & Jerry’s franchise.

The Israeli franchise employs about 160 people — how many are Arabs, how many are Jews — and it buys raw materials from local farmers.

Rather than illegally boycott a franchise that turns a profit for Unilever, set up a “Palestinian”-owned franchise in territory-controlled by the PLO/PFLP or Hamas; put “Palestinians” to work; support “Palestinian” dairy farmers.

But understand, that in the PLO/PFLP or Hamas territories, there IS apartheid. A Jew enters these area at the risk of his or her life. A Jew cannot buy land in either territory. A Jew cannot work at any job in the territory and most assuredly cannot hold a government or elected position.

NOW THAT’S APARTHEID

How do I know this.

I have eyes to see and ears to hear.

I am an U.S. citizen by birth. I also am an Israeli who returned after a 42-year stint in the States.

I live in Israel.

I have been hospitalized in Israel where I was attended by Jewish and Muslim doctors, nurses, technicians, and aides.

I shop at markets that employ Jews and Muslims — at equal pay for equal work.

In other words, unlike Ms. Mittal, I have first hand knowledge of life in Israel.

It is NOT the canard Ms. Mittal would have other ignorant people believe.

Who she is parroting is known only to her and her like-minded ignoramuses.

Three parrots – do they “parrot” each other?

 

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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.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

 

 

 

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