Ben & Jerry's : Black Lives matter, so do Palestinians

In the aftermath of George Floyds  death in Minneapolis, US, thousands have taken part in protests and demonstrations across the world supporting the Black Lives Movement and calling for an end to police brutality against black people.

On Tuesday 2 June, so called Progressive ice cream makers, Ben and Jerry’s released a statement on its website, saying that the company is “outraged” over the killing of Mr Floyd and “the continued violent response by police against protesters”. Ben & Jerry's is known as a company that has spoken out on climate change, th rights of refugees and migrants, and the LGBTQ community, as well as for its bold statements in support of the Movement for Black lives in America since 2016.
 “We have to speak out. We have to stand together with the victims of murder, marginalisation, and repression because of their skin colour, and with those who seek justice through protests across our country. We have to say his name: George Floyd,” the firm said.

Ben and Jerry’s wrote that the murder of Mr Floyd “was the result of inhumane police brutality that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy”, stressing that he is the “latest in a long list of names” of black people who have been killed, including Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner.
 “Today, we want to be even more clear about the urgent need to take concrete steps to dismantle white supremacy in all its forms,” the firm stated.
The ice cream brand said it is calling upon US President Donald Trump and other elected officials “to commit our nation to a formal process of healing and reconciliation”.
The company is also calling upon the US Congress to pass legislation that would “create a commission to study the effects of slavery and discrimination from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies”.

In addition, the firm is supporting Mr Floyd’s family in creating a national task force that would help to combat racial violence and increase accountability of the police force.
Commendable stuff  that all this is, activists meanwhile, say that slamming white supremacy, especially with the Trump administration in the White House , without invoking the rights of Palestinians is hypocritical and short sighted. In violation of their social mission, their Israeli franchise sells ice cream in illegal, Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, transported on Jewish-only roads, on trucks with Jewish-only license plates, passing easily through military checkpoints that bedevil others, and by doing business in Israeli settlements it makes the company complicit with the crime of apartheid.
 Israeli soldiers make it possible for Jewish-only settlements to grow in number and for supermarkets in those settlements to offer all the amenities of the "good life," including pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream--in contrast to the economic and social deprivations imposed on the Palestinian people.
As long as Jewish settlers remain the beneficiaries of settler-colonialism in occupied Palestine and companies like Ben & Jerry's are not held accountable for their business ties to the settlements, the suffering and dispossession of the Palestinian people will continue and intensify.
As a result since 2013, thousands of individuals and nearly 250 organizations in 20 countries have called on Ben & Jerry’s to stop sales to Israeli illegal settlements and to publicly oppose Israel’s occupation and settlements. They have refused to do so. Selective humanity is no humanity at all.  Ben & Jerry's silence on this issue speaks volumes.
 Ben & Jerry's has built a  carefully managed brand image and a loyal following around its social mission of "deep respect for human beings" and "the communities in which they live." Because of its well-known reputation as a business with a social conscience, Ben & Jerry's commercial ventures with Israel, more so perhaps than those of any other company, contribute significantly to "normalizing" the occupation by obfuscating the contradiction between cooperation with Israel and the imperatives of social justice. There is no such thing as ethical commerce in a land under military occupation, or with a system of settler-colonialism, or with apartheid.
Today happens to  marks the anniversary of the Naksa (the setback) following the  six day war when in 1967 Israel illegally  seized  what was left of  the Palestinian's historic homeland,the Sinai, the Golan heights, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem .Nearly 400,000 Palestinians were added to  the hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced in 1948 and their homes were razed to the ground by the Israelis. Leading to over 50 years of occupation.
As the Palestinian people face further annexation in the West Bank,  Ben & Jerry's activities in the settlements is an insult to this collective pain, and  until they have a change of mind, and stop supporting apartheid and occupation  all Ben & Jerry's other gestures, will just feel empty and hollow. For more on this story read below :-

Ben & Jerry freezes when it comes to Palestine

https://bit.ly/2XYT6z2