From:
Vermonters for
Justice in Palestineand the Campaign to
Get Ben & Jerry's out of Israel and Illegal Settlements.
Ben & Jerry's:
Don't be Part of
Israeli Apartheid!Human Rights Watch states that Israel is committing the crimes against humanity of Apartheid and Persecution.
Get out of Israel now!
Sign this Petition to Ben & Jerry's
CEO Matthew McCarthy and
Global Social Mission Officer Dave Rapaport
Does this look familiar?
Remember Apartheid? (South Africa, 1990)
It's Back! (Palestine now)
Human Rights Watch just released a 213-page report, entitled "A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution". It states that the
present-day reality is that Israel is the sole governing
power throughout most of those areas and that in the
remainder it exercises primary authority alongside limited
Palestinian self-rule.
See
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Some salient statements in the report:
What does Israel want from its settler colonialism?
See
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Some salient statements in the report:
- "Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians,"
- "Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy,"
- "In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas... these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
- "Denying millions of Palestinians their fundamental rights, without any legitimate security justification and solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish, is not simply a matter of an abusive occupation," said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director.
- These policies, which grant Jewish Israelis the same
rights and privileges wherever they live and discriminate
against Palestinians to varying degrees wherever they live,
reflect a policy to privilege one people at the expense of
another."
This comes shortly after the statement from the Israel human rights group B'Tselem
"A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid".
"A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid".
Previously (January 2016) Human Rights Watch published a
report:
“Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights" https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/19/occupation-inc/how-settlement-businesses-contribute-israels-violations
The Report documents how businesses operating in the settlements profit from the oppression of the Palestinian people and normalize Israel’s colonization project. This report demanded implicated companies to:
- Cease activities carried out inside settlements;
- Avoid financing, administering or otherwise supporting settlements or settlement related activities and infrastructure, to ensure the businesses are not indirectly contributing to and benefiting from such activities;
- Conduct human rights due diligence.
Ben & Jerry's and other corporations are doing business in illegal Jewish-only settlements in Occupied Palestine.
“Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights" https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/19/occupation-inc/how-settlement-businesses-contribute-israels-violations
The Report documents how businesses operating in the settlements profit from the oppression of the Palestinian people and normalize Israel’s colonization project. This report demanded implicated companies to:
- Cease activities carried out inside settlements;
- Avoid financing, administering or otherwise supporting settlements or settlement related activities and infrastructure, to ensure the businesses are not indirectly contributing to and benefiting from such activities;
- Conduct human rights due diligence.
Ben & Jerry's and other corporations are doing business in illegal Jewish-only settlements in Occupied Palestine.
Previously (February 2020): United Nations Human Rights
Office published a database of businesses that have been
profiting from Israel's illegal annexation and settlement
activity in the West Bank.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, announced here that 112 major companies had been identified as operating in Israeli settlements in ways that violate human rights.
One of them is the Israeli Supermarket chain Shufersal that sells "Peace and Love" Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Israeli-Jewish settlements. The UN Human Rights Commission lists nine criteria (listed activities) - Shufersal came under activities (e) and (g), where
Activity (e) is the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport;
Activity (g) is the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes;
Details: here and here
We condemn Ben & Jerry's long-time implicit support of Israeli colonialism through sales of its ice cream in Shufersal supermarkets in illegal settlements.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, announced here that 112 major companies had been identified as operating in Israeli settlements in ways that violate human rights.
One of them is the Israeli Supermarket chain Shufersal that sells "Peace and Love" Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Israeli-Jewish settlements. The UN Human Rights Commission lists nine criteria (listed activities) - Shufersal came under activities (e) and (g), where
Activity (e) is the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport;
Activity (g) is the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes;
Details: here and here
We condemn Ben & Jerry's long-time implicit support of Israeli colonialism through sales of its ice cream in Shufersal supermarkets in illegal settlements.
What does Israel want from its settler colonialism?
- Settlements expand residential and commercial resources for Israel, at the expense of Palestinian people who are displaced. Settlements are connected to Israel by roads that Palestinians cannot use.
- Increasingly, the Zionist vision of a 'Greater Israel' enveloping all of the West Bank is becoming mainstream in Israel and the USA. But this requires eliminating the rights of non-Jewish people from that land.
- The northern Jordan Valley has some of the most fertile land in Palestine and Israel's occupation already restricts Palestinians from 91% of that land. On the 9% of the Jordan Valley that Palestinians are "allowed" to cultivate, Israel forbids access to water.
- Water is reallocated to illegal settlements where settlers consume 8 times more water than Palestinians. Israel regularly cuts off the water supply to Palestinian residents.
Ben
& Jerry's out of Israel - Now!