Bennett: Siding with Hamas “Not Cool”

Pursuing the government’s campaign against Ben & Jerry’s, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Thursday that “consumers in Israel, but also in the U.S. and other countries, would not think that siding with Hamas is at all ‘cool.’”

The remark came on Day Three after the ice cream company announced its decision to terminate sales in Yehuda and Shomron because it was not consistent with their “values.”

Bennett spoke at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv while meeting with a 26-person delegation of global ambassadors to the U.S. and the U.N. that is currently touring Israel.

He noted that Israel would use all the tools at its disposal – including legal – on this issue and declared that those who boycott Israel, whose only failing is that it fights terrorism, need to know that there will be a price to pay.

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan said that “it was precisely at the present time, when commercial companies are capitulating to BDS pressures and taking anti-Israel political considerations into account when making decisions, that the ambassadors’ visit takes on special importance.”

He noted that in the wake of their visit, the ambassadors have undertaken to influence their countries’ positions and to stand alongside Israel in its fight against the hypocrisy and anti-Israel discrimination in the international arena.

On Tuesday, Erdan sent letters to the governors of the 35 US states that have enacted legislation against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, requesting that they sanction Ben & Jerry’s over its decision.

The ambassadorial group arrived in Israel Thursday for a week-long tour sponsored by the American Zionist Movement. Envoys from Kenya, Hungary, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Bhutan, the Dominican Republic, Ukraine, Tonga, Guatemala and Australia are participating, many of them for their first time in Israel.

At a U.S. State Department press briefing on Tuesday, spokesman Ned Price said he does not have “a reaction to offer regarding the actions of a private company” when asked about the situation, but reiterated that White House officials “firmly reject the BDS movement, which unfairly singles out Israel.”