Ben & Jerry’s Israel manufacturer hails ‘wonderful’ new deal that thwarts settlement boycott

Avi Zinger, the Israeli manufacturer and distributor of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, hails the new deal under which the products will continue to be sold at Israeli settlements and throughout Israel.

Zinger tells Army Radio that Unilever realized “it had to find a way out of the mess it was in” and “found a way to bypass Ben & Jerry’s.”

He says he was overwhelmed by support during the battle to prevent the implementation of a decision announced by Ben & Jerry’s last year to no longer allow its ice cream to be sold in Israeli settlements. “Literally thousands of people” contacted him to offer support, he says.

Without asking to, he said, he had “long since stopped being an ice-cream maker in Be’er Tuvia” — where his factory is located in southern Israel — and instead become the face of the struggle against BDS. Now, though, he says, “We get to go back to what we love doing — making and selling good ice cream.”

The new arrangement is “wonderful,” he says.

“I gathered the workers today to tell them the news,” he adds, and the delight on their faces “made it all worthwhile.”