Ben & Jerry's employees required to view anti-Israel lectures

Ben & Jerry's is requiring all new employees to watch four videos about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all of which appear to be biased against the Jewish state, the Jewish Insider reported.

The videos are part of the company's "Scooper Series: Social Mission" concerning the conflict as well as racism in the U.S., an employee told the Jewish Insider.

Featured in one of the videos is anti-Israel activist Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine director. Shakir, a BDS promoter, advocates for a one-state solution to the conflict - meaning an end to the Jewish state.

"Omar Shakir's background and history of anti-Israel activity, and his repeated use of false claims and hyperbolic propaganda, highlights HRW's ideological hostility to Israel and retreat from the universal principles of human rights," according to NGO Monitor.

In the video, Shakir alleges, "If you look at the recent escalation that took place in May of 2021, it started over discriminatory efforts to force Palestinians out of their homes in occupied East Jerusalem as part of this larger policy."

"The policy also extends to the Gaza Strip. Although the Israeli government withdrew its settler population and ground forces in 2005, the Israeli government continues to exercise control over Gaza," he claims.

Shakir reportedly counselled the Ben & Jerry's board last year ahead of its decision to stop selling its products in what it referred to as "Occupied Palestinian Territory," Jewish Insider noted.

In April 2019, an Israeli court upheld a deportation order against Shakir, giving him two weeks to leave the country. Israel's interior minister ordered Shakir's deportation in May 2018, calling him a "boycott activist."

Israel enacted a law in 2017 barring entry to any foreigner who "knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel."

The court said that Shakir "continues his actions publicly to advance a boycott against Israel, but it's not on the stages at conferences or in university panels, rather through disseminating his calls to advance boycott primarily through his Twitter account and by other means."

It cited Shakir's support on Twitter for Airbnb's decision to remove postings from Israelis living in Judea and and Samaria as an example. Airbnb later backtracked on that decision.

Neither Ben & Jerry's nor Shakir responded to Jewish Insider's request for comment.