Unilever sells Ben & Jerry's commercial rights after West Bank dispute

The multinational Unilever and the Ben & Jerry's franchise in Israel reached an agreement on Thursday that will allow the famous American ice cream to continue to be sold in Jewish settlement colonies in the West Bank, where it suspended operations last year.

As part of the deal, Unilever, which owns the ice cream company, will sell the commercial rights to Ben & Jerry's in Israel to local franchise owner Avi Zinger, according to Israeli media. 

Zinger will thus be able to continue to sell the ice cream in Israel and Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, but not under the auspices of Unilever or the company.

The brand logo will have to be changed as part of the agreement. It will no longer be in English and will now be printed in Hebrew and Arabic.

This "will ensure that ice cream remains available to all consumers," the company said.

This agreement comes a year after the announcement of the U.S. company's decision to suspend its operations, which would have made access to ice cream more difficult for the more than 450,000 Jewish residents of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

A foreign ministry spokesman told EFE that Israel was part of the talks to reach the agreement after initially reacting vehemently to the announcement of the halting of operations in the West Bank, which he described as anti-Semitic.

Unilever was embroiled in political controversy last year after Ben & Jerry's, a brand with a history of public support for "progressive causes" such as same-sex marriage or the Black Lives Matter movement, declared it would stop selling ice cream in Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Unilever at the time that the "blatantly anti-Israel" decision would have "serious repercussions, legal and otherwise." Ben & Jerry's stance also prompted U.S. funds, including those administered by the states of New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Florida, and Texas, to divest their holdings in Unilever.

Terry Smith, the founder of Fundsmith and a major investor in Unilever, also took issue with Ben & Jerry's situation in Israel. He called it an example of the consumer giant's excessive focus on issues unrelated to its core business of selling food.