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Ben & Jerry’s Israeli Factory and Israel’s Stolen Land and Stolen Water
Ben & Jerry’s Israeli factory in Be’er Tuvia (adjacent to the town of Kiryat Malachi) was opened officially in June, 2010 with the blessing of the U.S. ambassador. Kiryat Malachi is one of four Israeli localities located on the lands of the former Palestinian village of Qastina, destroyed by Israeli troops in 1948. In 1990, Palestinian researchers investigated the status of Palestinian villages occupied and depopulated by Israel in 1948. At the site of Qastina they found only bushes, tall grasses and the debris of demolished houses. Where is Kiryat Malachi?
The Ben & Jerry’s factory is in Be’er Tuvia, adjacent to the town of Kiryat Malachi, one of four Israeli localities located on the lands of the former village of Qastina, in territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. However on July 9, 1948, after Israel’s declaration of independence and the ensuing war, Qastina and its more than 147 houses were completely destroyed by Israeli forces of the Givati Brigade, and the land incorporated into Israel. (Based on information documented at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qastina, accessed December 2012).
Water Used by the Factory
When investigating Ben & Jerry’s business dealings in Israel and the occupied territory, we also set out to determine if the company’s franchise was benefiting from Israel’s criminal diversion of Palestinian water. Our inquiry, which included discussions with an international water consultant, led us to the tentative conclusion that Ben & Jerry's factory in Kiryat Malachi may be drawing water from the Jordan River system and the Mountain Aquifer in the occupied West Bank, the two highest-quality water sources in the region, thus diverting it from Palestinian use.
Palestinians under occupation have been denied access to the Jordan River since 1967, leaving the Mountain Aquifer as their only source of water. A study by The World Bank determined that “Palestinian per capita access to water resources in the West Bank is a quarter of Israeli access and is declining.” This is a result of Israeli government planning and regulation.
To make matters worse, Israeli settlers in the West Bank often obstruct or disconnect the flow of water to Arab communities, while 500,000 settlers consume in total approximately six times more water than three million Palestinians. This difference is if even higher when agricultural use is factored in. Regular access to water explains why one commonly sees green lawns and swimming pools in Israeli settlements. In stark contrast, throughout the year, but especially in the summer, Palestinian cities and villages are denied continuous access to water, sometimes for weeks on end. This gross injustice is aggravated by Israel’s policy of denying permits to Palestinians to drill new wells or rehabilitate old ones.
By manufacturing in Israel and marketing in the occupied territory, Ben & Jerry's is a willing partner to a water system that is grossly inequitable, transgresses international law, and denies Palestinians their fair share of the Mountain Aquifer and the Jordan River. Please see Our Report for more information on Israel’s water crimes in the occupied territory.
Swimming pool in lush, irrigated surroundings of the West Bank settlement of Ariel.
Palestinian woman at a primitive water supply cistern.
"Water is life; without water we can’t live; not us, not the animals, or the plants. Before we had some water, but after the army destroyed everything we have to bring water from far away;… They make our life very difficult, to make us leave. The soldiers first destroyed our homes and the shelters with our flocks, uprooted all our trees, and then they wrecked our water cisterns. These were old water cisterns, from the time of our ancestors. Isn’t this a crime?"
Fatima al-Nawajah, a resident of Susya, a Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills, in the West Bank, to Amnesty International, April 2008.
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