{"id":632223,"date":"2021-08-11T05:06:20","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T09:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=632223"},"modified":"2021-08-11T05:06:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T09:06:22","slug":"former-ben-and-jerrys-employee-says-anti-israel-activist-spoke-to-board-ahead-of-boycott-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-ben-and-jerrys-employee-says-anti-israel-activist-spoke-to-board-ahead-of-boycott-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Ben and Jerry\u2019s Employee Says Anti-Israel Activist Spoke to Board Ahead of Boycott Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-ben-and-jerrys-employee-says-anti-israel-activist-spoke-to-board-ahead-of-boycott-decision%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=632223&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"28.990595611285\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/\">National Security<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir spoke directly to board<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"736\" height=\"479\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-956419182-736x479-1.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-956419182-e1628627985268.jpg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-956419182-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-956419182-768x500.jpg 768w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tHuman Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/alana-goodman\/\" title=\"Posts by Alana Goodman\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Alana Goodman<\/a> \u2022 August 11, 2021 5:00 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"90.426877470356\">\n<p>A former longtime Ben &amp; Jerry&#8217;s employee said the company&#8217;s decision to boycott Israel was based on advice from a BDS activist who was expelled from Israel for spearheading economic pressure campaigns against the Jewish state.<\/p>\n<p>Susannah Levin, who spent 21 years as a freelance graphic designer for Ben &amp; Jerry&#8217;s before resigning last month over the company&#8217;s decision to halt its sales in the West Bank, said the company&#8217;s board consulted with Human Rights Watch&#8217;s Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir, an advocate of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement who accused the Jewish state of &#8220;crimes against humanity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Omar Shakir spoke directly to the board,&#8221; said Levin in an interview with Israel&#8217;s Channel 2 radio on Tuesday. &#8220;He wrote the Human Rights Watch report, [which] is what they were basing their information on. It&#8217;s a report that accuses Israel of apartheid.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They believed him to be a valid source of information about Israel,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>Ben &amp; Jerry&#8217;s has come under scrutiny for its involvement with anti-Israel activists. The company recently hosted a conference call with anti-Zionist writer Peter Beinart, who has said he supports the destruction of the Jewish state, to address concerns about the boycott from its franchise owners, the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/ben-and-jerrys-invites-israel-critic-peter-beinart-to-speak-to-franchise-owners\/\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ben &amp; Jerry&#8217;s declined to comment on Shakir&#8217;s alleged involvement with its board. Human Rights Watch did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Shakir was deported from Israel in 2019 due to his&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ngo-monitor.org\/fact-sheet-on-omar-shakirs-bds-campaigns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attempts<\/a>&nbsp;to pressure various companies and international organizations, including FIFA, to join boycotts against homes and businesses in contested parts of Israel. He took credit for Airbnb&#8217;s decision to bar Israelis in the West Bank from renting their homes on the site in 2018. The rental service later backtracked in the face of legal challenges.<\/p>\n<p>In April, Shakir authored a report for Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of committing &#8220;crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The report&#8217;s conclusion was rejected by the Biden administration, which said it was &#8220;not the view of this administration that Israel&#8217;s actions constitute apartheid.&#8221; Israeli ambassador to the United States Gilad Erdan denounced the report as &#8220;lies and fabrications, bordering on anti-Semitic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Levin said she believed she had no choice but to resign after Ben &amp; Jerry&#8217;s announced its boycott.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I knew that my job was over. I knew I wasn&#8217;t going to work there if they were going to [boycott Israel],&#8221; said Levin. &#8220;I worked for this company for so long, and they were like family to me. To think they would really join up with people who hate Israel so much, it&#8217;s a terrible feeling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Security Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir spoke directly to board  Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir \/ Getty Images  Alana &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}