President Isaac Herzog called boycotts of Israel “a new kind of terrorism” on Wednesday, joining Israeli officials who have harshly criticized Ben & Jerry’s over the ice cream company’s decision to stop selling to residents of the West Bank.
“The boycott against Israel is a new type of terrorism — economic terrorism. Terrorism that seeks to harm Israeli citizens and the Israeli economy. We must oppose this boycott and terrorism of any kind,” Herzog said, adding: “The BDS campaign does not pursue peace and seeks to undermine the very existence of the State of Israel. It is aiming its arrows at the Israeli economy.”
On Monday, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would no longer distribute its products in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” apparently referring to Jewish communities in the West Bank. The move was widely condemned in Israel, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid vowing to request from US states that they activate their anti-BDS laws to punish the Vermont-based company.
Ben & Jerry’s said the decision would take effect at the end of 2022, when the contract with its local manufacturer and distributor expires. The future of sales across the Jewish state beginning in 2023 remains in question.
At Israel’s request, US President Joe Biden’s administration will delay reopening the US consulate in Jerusalem as a de facto mission to the Palestinians until the Israeli government passes a budget, according to local media. The decision follows requests from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry.
An anonymous high-ranking source has claimed that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is opposed to the reopening of the consulate, arguing that this contradicts the US recognition of Jerusalem in 2017 as the capital of Israel.
In an attempt to thwart Washington’s plans, Knesset member Nir Barkat earlier this month submitted a bill that would prevent the United States from reopening its Jerusalem consulate to the Palestinians. “We are talking about the unification of Jerusalem,” Barkat, former mayor of the city, said, arguing that his bill was necessary to prevent the division of the city.
In 2019, the Trump administration merged the 175-year-old consulate in Jerusalem — which historically served as a de facto mission to the Palestinians — and the new US embassy in the city.
IDF soldiers arrested two suspects in northern Israel Thursday morning after they were spotted crossing the border from Lebanon into the Jewish state, the military said in a statement. The two were reportedly migrant workers and were questioned at the site where they were discovered.
In June, two suspects believed to be job seekers from Lebanon managed to hide from soldiers for over 12 hours after they had snuck into Israeli territory. That infiltration was not suspected to have been terror-related.
However, Thursday’s incident occurred just two days after rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, setting off sirens in the Western Galilee region. One of the projectiles was intercepted by Iron Dome and the other landed in an open field. In response to the rocket fire, the IDF fired tank shells toward Hamoul Valley, from where the rockets had been launched.
In May, during Operation Guardian of the Walls, a dozen rockets were fired into the Jewish state from the same area in Lebanon. The IDF responded with artillery fire after those rocket attacks as well.
Jewish basketball star Sue Bird will be one of Team USA’s two flag bearers at the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony on Friday. Bird will be competing in her fifth Olympic games this summer. The 12-time WNBA All-Star has won gold at the last four Olympics with the US Women’s Basketball Team.
“I think that’s the best part, to be honest, to have your peers be the one to see your career and pick you to be the one to lead us in,” Bird said on Wednesday. The flag bearer, and the opening ceremony, has “always been” Bird’s favorite Olympics moment, “outside of winning, obviously,” she joked. “So, to actually be named [flag bearer] now is mind-blowing.”
Bird — whose paternal grandparents immigrated to the US from what is now Ukraine in the early 1900s and changed their surname from “Boorda” to “Bird” — also holds Israeli citizenship.
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Recommended Reading
- How US Laws Against Israel Boycotts Could Hit Ben & Jerry’s (Ron Kampeas, Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
- Israel’s Headache Named Qatar (Benjamin Weil, Jewish News Syndicate)
- As an Israeli First Responder, I Went to Surfside (Hadas Rucham, Algemeiner)
- Lebanon is Dying a Slow Death (Jonathan Spyer, Jerusalem Post)
- ‘Fauda’ Becomes First Israeli Series to Be Dubbed in Farsi (i24News)
