The decision by ice-cream giant Ben & Jerry’s to pull its business beyond the Green Line means that under U.S. law its parent company, Unilever, has lost the right to protect the brand’s trademark in Judea and Samaria, the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center announced over the weekend.
The NGO said it plans to apply for trademark licensing of a similar brand under the name “Judea and Samaria’s Ben & Jerry’s,” with the explicit intent of rivaling the original.
Unilever’s CEO Alan Jope stressed last week that the multinational consumer goods company, whose Israeli branch is among the five leading consumer products companies operating in the country, was “fully committed to our business in Israel.”
“Unilever is no longer in a position to enforce its trademark in these areas,” said Shurat HaDin chief Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.
“These are our new weapons and approach in the war against BDS: Anyone who stops selling their products in Israel will find that we have taken over their trademarks and rights. Ben & Jerry’s will regret the day they boycotted Israel,” she said.
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project and co-founder of the End Jew Hatred movement, said last week that the sheer size of Unilever opens it up to possible significant financial penalties.
“By virtue of its wayward subsidiary, Unilever—a massive international conglomerate—risks potentially crushing financial consequences in terms of its ability to receive investments from, or do business with, the majority of U.S. states,” she said.
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.