Ben & Jerry's Freezes Ice Cream Sales in Israeli Settlements

The company did not say when it would halt sales, but its sole local Israeli manufacturer vowed to continue selling as usual until its license expires at the end of 2022.

The Vermont-based ice cream maker said it would continue sales inside Israel but would not renew its license with the Israeli manufacturer that has produced the company's legendary flavors locally for more than three decades.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called the decision "antisemitic," and called on U.S. states with laws against Israel boycotts to sanction Ben & Jerry's. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the move "morally wrong" and vowed to fight it.

"Ben & Jerry's has decided to brand itself as the anti-Israel ice cream," Bennett said in a statement.

The decision, announced Monday, follows a campaign by pro-Palestinian activists in the U.S. to boycott the confectioner for allowing ice cream sales in Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians seek that territory for a future independent state.

The BDS movement, which calls for boycotts of Israel and which Israeli leaders label discriminatory, said Ben & Jerry's "is finally bringing its policy on Israel's regime of oppression against Palestinians in line with its progressive positions on Black Lives Matter and other justice struggles."

In a similar move in 2018, the Airbnb property rental company announced it would forbid listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Five months later, it reversed that decision and said it would continue to list settlement properties but donate profits from all West Bank listings to organizations supplying humanitarian aid around the world. 

It's unclear if Ben & Jerry's, owned by Unilever, is just targeting Israeli settlement sales, or if it also intends to end sales of its ice cream in Palestinian-owned stores in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). A Ben & Jerry's spokesperson declined to elaborate. Two stores that sell Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the Palestinian city of Ramallah declined comment.