Ben & Jerry suffered an AOC moment - comment

• Author: HERB KEINON
• Published date: 11 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Cohen, sitting on a folding chair in a bucolic Vermont pasture along with Jerry Greenfield, the other half of the eponymous Ben & Jerry's ice-cream empire, was asked by Axios's Alexi McCammond about the company's decision in July to boycott the settlements and stop selling its ice cream beyond the Green Line.

"We were always in favor of a two-state solution," Cohen said when asked why this move was taken now, since the conflict has been going on for so long. "The policy of the Israeli government has been to endorse these settlements in the occupied territories, that keep on making it harder and harder to actually have a two-state solution."

Asked, then, why not stop all sales to Israel completely, Cohen replied: "I disagree with the US policy, [but] we couldn't stop selling in the US. I think it is fine to be involved in a country, be a citizen of a country and to protest some of the country's actions, and that is essentially what we are doing in regards to Israel. We hugely support Israel's right to exist, but we are against a particular policy."

Asked why, if that is the case, the company does not halt sales in Georgia, which in April adopted a new election law that both men oppose. Or why continue to sell in Texas, where new laws make it more difficult for women to have access to abortions, a policy they are certainly opposed to.

Cohen shrugged, paused, then with a blank look said, "I don't know. I mean it is an interesting question. I don't know what that would accomplish… I think you ask a really good question, and I'd have to sit and think about it a bit."

And why does that qualify as an AOC moment?

Because it brings to mind her July 2018 interview with PBS's Margaret Hoover on the Firing Line, which went viral.

When Hoover asked Ocasio-Cortez, who was then running for Congress, about her position on Israel, she said: "I believe absolutely in Israel's right to exist. I am supporting a two-state solution… I also think that what people are starting to see, at least in the occupation of Palestine, is an increasing crisis of humanitarian conditions. And that to me is where I tend to come from on this issue."

When Hoover asked her to explain what she meant by "the occupation of Palestine," AOC responded: "What I meant is, like, the settlements that are increasing in these areas, where Palestinians are facing difficulties in accessing their housing and homes." Pressed to expand on that, she said with a laugh, "I am not the expert on geopolitics on this...