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Ben & Jerry’s chair: ‘I’m a victim of online hate, I’m not anti-Semitic’

“The vile hate that has been thrown at me does not intimidate me,” Mittal tweeted. “Please work for peace!”

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Anuradha Mittal, the chair of Ben & Jerry’s board of directors, tweeted on Tuesday that she is not anti-Semitic and that she is the victim of online hate.

“I am proud of @benandjerrys for taking a stance to end sale of its ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” she tweeted.

“This action is not anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Semitic. The vile hate that has been thrown at me does [not] intimidate me. Pls work for peace – not hatred!”

Mittal’s decision to ban sales of Ben & Jerry’s products in Judea and Samaria was well received by progressive Jewish groups, including J Street and the New Israel Fund.

She retweeted an excerpt from an open letter by the groups which read, “None of our organizations endorse boycotts of Israel or support the global BDS movement… like Ben & Jerry’s, we make a clear distinction between the State of Israel & the Palestinian territories it militarily occupies.”

But while some Jewish groups believe that the Ben & Jerry’s ban is solely aimed at Judea and Samaria, a look at Mittal’s Twitter history reveals that she has long been a vocal critic of the Jewish State.

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According to watchdog group Stop Anti-Semitism, Mittal has racked up no less than 100 tweets in recent years specifically criticizing Israel, including one which referred to the birth of the country as a “catastrophe.”

During May 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls, Mittal responded to a statement by President Joe Biden which said Israel had the right to defend itself.

“Defend itself against what? Stop condoning war crimes and apartheid,” she wrote.

Last week, Mittal told NBC News that Ben & Jerry’s had planned a full-blown boycott of Israel, but their parent company Unilever intervened and changed the statement at the last minute to read that their products would still be available in Israel “proper.”

She insinuate that Unilever’s business decision to continue operating in Israel, despite Ben & Jerry’s objections, was inherently racist and sexist.

“I can’t stop thinking that this is what happens when you have a board with all women and people of color who have been pushing to do the right thing,” she said.