Israel Hayom opinion editor Eithan Orkibi claims Meretz's support for a boycott of the settlements is weakening the coalition. Indeed. As far back as 2015, Meretz submitted legislation to label settlement products. In 2020, I said that "Meretz supports the boycott of products manufactured in the settlements." Meretz party leaders have said the same in the past. Tamar Zandberg, the party's chairwoman, said: "I am not prepared to give my money to the injustice and violation of human rights of occupation and settlements." Former Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On also announced her boycott of settlement products.
Our position is that settlements are immoral, illegal, and cause incredible damage to state security. As long as the damage was to security, the economy, and democracy, it was ignored by the Right. But then came Ben & Jerry's announcement it would no longer sell ice cream in the Palestinian territories, and the ostrich removed its head from the sand. For years, Israeli soldiers have been called to risk their lives to protect the settlements. Ice cream is nothing in comparison. It's hard to complain about a policy that distinguishes between Israel and the territories when the State of Israel, having never applied Israeli law there, does the same thing itself. Similarly, all of the countries in the world differentiate between the occupied territories and sovereign Israel.
The only thing is that a commercial company now wants to do the same and is demanding its Israeli licensee stop sell its products outside Israel and in illegal settlements in the occupied territories in particular. The move is only logical: An Israeli licensee should only sell in Israel, just as a French licensee should only sell in France.
How should the licensee have responded?
When the Europeans, within the framework of the Horizon 2020 funding program for research and innovation, demanded, as they did in previous projects, their money not be transferred to the settlements, the Israeli government under then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "folded." Even the Netanyahu government didn't dare harm Israel's glorious scientific field over the spoke in the wheel that is the settlements.
This is precisely how the Israeli licensee should have responded, by expressing their political views, protesting, and possibly trying to overturn the decision. Ultimately, though, they should have agreed that the license only applied to Israeli territory and protected their employees. After all, absent the settlements, there would be no boycott: The employees would be protected, and Israel's citizens would have their ice cream.
The State of Israel has controlled the territories for ideological purposes for 54 years through the economic exploitation of the Palestinians' cheap labor and natural resources.
Ben & Jerry's, a Jewish-owned US company that chose to set up one of its few overseas factories in Israel, cannot be accused of antisemitism. If anything, the opposite is true. Distinguishing between sovereign Israel and the settlements is an expression of support for sovereign Israel and Israeli interests. This is Meretz's worldview, and the current coalition is no weaker due to the existence of disagreements on the path to achieving the common goal of a better Israel.
The ice cream debacle is just a sign of things to come. Ben & Jerry's is not boycotting Israel but the settlements. Continued construction in the settlements and the blurring of the Green Line will force us to repeatedly decide between working for the settlements or all of Israel's citizens.
