Tennessee | July 22, 2021
Tennessee Rep. Kustoff Condemns Ben & Jerry’s Boycott of Jewish West Bank Settlements
Tennessee | July 22, 2021
Calling Israel America’s “greatest ally in the Middle East,” Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-8) on Tuesday decried the decision of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Company to cease selling its products in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and contested parts of East Jerusalem.
“This shouldn’t even be a debate,” he told Sean Spicer and co-host Lyndsay Keith on a broadcast of Newsmax’s Spicer & Co. “They shouldn’t have started this controversy.”
The congressman noted Ben & Jerry’s has received a sharp backlash as a result of its move, including from the Israeli government and from many Americans, which could take the form of a counter-boycott. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has admonished Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, that such a response would spell “severe consequences” for the corporation.
Along those lines, Keith cited the Wheaton, Maryland-based Shalom Kosher Market, which has announced it will no longer sell Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.
“When people around the world look to the United States to lead an example, and we need to show strong support for Israel—they’re our leading democracy in the Middle East—and an ice cream company makes it political, it’s a real shame,” Kustoff said.
Kustoff, who is himself Jewish, likened the corporation’s decision to anti-Israel vitriol voiced by some congressional Democrats. One such Democrat is Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN-5), who tweeted last month that “we have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.” Another is Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-13), who last year retweeted a message declaring “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” an expression calling to mind the elimination of the Jewish state….
(Excerpts from the Tennesse Star)
California, District of Columbia, Tennessee | May 25, 2021
McCarthy, Kustoff introduce bill targeting anti-Semitic hate crimes amid wave of attacks
California, District of Columbia, Tennessee | May 25, 2021
Attacks ‘have no place in our country,’ Tennessee lawmaker says
EXCLUSIVE: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP Rep. David Kustoff on Tuesday rolled out a bill to prevent anti-Semitic hate crimes amid a wave of violent attacks against American Jews in the U.S. after an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Fox News first obtained McCarthy, R-Calif., and Kustoff’s, R-Tenn., legislation, Preventing Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes Act, on Tuesday.
“Over the past several weeks a growing number of House Democrats wrongly blamed the violence in the Middle East on Israel,” McCarthy told Fox News. “In fact, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Cori Bush irresponsibly tried to delegitimize our closest ally in the region, calling it an ‘apartheid state.’ Within days, this same sentiment of bigotry spilled into several major U.S. cities. Graphic videos showed pro-Hamas mobs intentionally target random Americans simply because they were Jewish. “
McCarthy said these “hateful attacks contradict the very essence of our nation’s core principles.”
“Yet socialist Democrats continue to endorse and promote repulsive anti-Semitic rhetoric, while Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer refuse to unambiguously condemn the unhinged statements from members of their own party,” McCarthy said, referring to anti-Israel progressive members of the Democratic Party. “This follows more than four years of abhorrent smears from Democrats, including then-candidate Biden and Whip Clyburn, who frequently equated President Trump and Republicans to Hitler and Nazis, diminishing the atrocities of the last century for cheap political talking points.” ..
(Excerpts from Fox News)