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Israel Shows It Has Nothing To Fear From International Coverage Of Palestine Conflict By Kicking Al Jazeera Out Of The Country

from the I-guess-we'll-just-have-to-take-the-state-media's-word-for-it dept

Wars, conflicts, domestic dust-ups, whatever you want to call them… they’re sensitive situations, easily made worse by even the most mild fluctuations in the political climate or the public temperament.

And while I’m completely aware there’s no enshrined rights protecting journalism on par with the First Amendment in Israel, this latest turn of events does the country’s government no favors… especially when it’s already on the losing end of a lot of battles in the court of public opinion.

Israeli authorities raided a Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera as its office after the government decided to shut down the Qatari-owned TV station’s local operations on Sunday, an Israeli official and an Al Jazeera source told Reuters.

Video circulated online showed plainclothes officers dismantling camera equipment in a hotel room, which the Al Jazeera source said was in East Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet shut down the network for as long as the war in Gaza continues, saying it threatened national security.

This is the sort of thing that happens almost everywhere when the domestic situation starts to get a bit war-ry. Having blacked its own eye several times — not the least of which was the apparent “targeted” killing of international aid workers providing food for Palestinians on the other side of Israel’s siege tactics — the Israeli government apparently won’t be allowing this particular non-Israeli news agency from criticizing it while enjoying the relative safety of a Jerusalem hotel room.

As usual, the excuse used for ejecting foreign journalists is a favorite of any country whose government wants to oust critics, dissidents, or unfriendly journalists: “national security.”

Certainly Al Jazeera’s coverage has been critical, but no more so than plenty of other news agencies. Its recent exposure of even more abuse of Israeli-crafted spyware by a questionable government customer couldn’t have helped, but Israel’s domestic news agencies have been doing this for years, helping contribute to the worldwide woes suffered (deservedly so!) by malware merchants like NSO Group and Candiru.

This decision to boot Al Jazeera was the result of a concerted effort that required a vote from the members of the Israeli government cabinet. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the vote was “unanimous.”

And it’s not as though Al Jazeera’s hands are completely clean, either. Accusations that its journalists cohabitate and collaborate with members of Islamic extremist groups have dogged the new outlet for years. There have been several accusations over the past several months that Al Jazeera journalists are not only embedded with Hamas, but apparently acting as operatives. (Of course, most of these accusations tend to come from governments irritated with Al Jazeera reporting, rather than sources with little to gain from silencing apparent critics.)

But there’s no reason to believe the journalists staying in Jerusalem were involved with anything more than providing ongoing coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. And this ousting by the Israeli government hasn’t earned it any international accolades. Instead, it has been met with united criticism from other governments as well as news agencies around the world.

Given the circumstances of this ejection, it looks far more like the Israeli government wants to wrest control of the conflict narrative. If it had any genuine concerns about Al Jazeera, it had plenty of time to address them before it became the subject of international criticism for its actions and tactics in this latest flare-up in hostilities. The timing here says this is just opportunistic and completely unmoored from any legitimate national security concerns. But when all you have is a war, everything looks like a “national security threat.”

Filed Under: free speech, gaza, israel, journalism, palestine
Companies: al jazeera

EFF Defends Anti-War Group Against SXSW’s Bullshit IP Claims

from the streisand-effect dept

We haven’t talked a great deal about SXSW in some time, but they are back in the news and not for good reasons! The conference and festival kicked off in March as planned, but less planned were the protests that organized against the conference as a result of its affiliations with defense contractors and the United States military and the ongoing support of Israel’s heavy-handed response to the attacks it suffered from Hamas last year. Performers backed out and a handful of protest groups organized alternative concerts and demonstrations out in front of SXSW.

One of those groups was the Austin for Palestine Coalition (APC) that put out communication and organized protests along these lines. In those communications, some of them included parodied versions of the SXSW branding to make it clear that the group believes the organization has blood on its hands. For instance:

Now, for the sin of publishing this parody content, which you will already recognize as protected speech under the First Amendment, SXSW made several trademark and copyright claims for takedowns of social media and internet content. To be clear, those claims are utter nonsense.

And if you want to understand the specifics as to why, the EFF has gotten involved in supporting AFC and has a great explainer in the link.

On the trademark question first:

The law is clear on this point. The First Amendment protects your right to make a political statement using trademark parodies, whether or not the trademark owner likes it. That’s why trademark law applies a different standard (the “Rogers test”) to infringement claims involving expressive works. The Rogers test is a crucial defense against takedowns like these, and it clearly applies here. Even without Rogers’ extra protections, SXSW’s trademark claim would be bogus: Trademark law is about preventing consumer confusion, and no reasonable consumer would see Austin for Palestine’s posts and infer they were created or endorsed by SXSW.

Completely correct. APC is protected when it comes to this content via several vectors. Parody is protected speech. Political messaging is protected speech. And, finally, trademark law struggles to be employed when there is no serious concern for confusion in the public. And if SXSW really wants to make the argument that someone is going to take messaging critical of it as affiliated with SXSW, I’m happy to sit back and laugh at them.

As for the copyright claim, it’s even worse.

SXSW’s copyright claims are just as groundless. Basic symbols like their arrow logo are not copyrightable. Moreover, even if SXSW meant to challenge Austin for Palestine’s mimicking of their promotional material—and it’s questionable whether that is copyrightable as well—the posts are a clear example of non-infringing fair use. In a fair use analysis, courts conduct a four-part analysis, and each of those four factors here either favors Austin for Palestine or is at worst neutral. Most importantly, it’s clear that the critical message conveyed by Austin for Palestine’s use is entirely different from the original purpose of these marketing materials, and the only injury to SXSW is reputational—which is not a cognizable copyright injury.

As far as the EFF has heard, SXSW hasn’t responded to its pushback. And, of course, guess what all of this bullying type behavior designed to bury the protests has actually done? Well, in true Streisand Effect fashion, the very information this bullying was supposed to tamp down is instead on a repeater as more and more outlets, including us, discuss the story in its entirety.

When will they ever learn?

Filed Under: austin for palestine coalition, copyright, israel, palestine, parody, protests, sxsw, trademark
Companies: sxsw

No, Trademark Squatting On Anti-Israel Phrase Won’t Keep It From Use

from the not-gonna-work dept

For some reason, there are enough people who are ignorant enough about trademark law such that every once in a while you get people who don’t like a thing trying to trademark that thing thinking they can prevent that thing from being done or used. It’s a form of trademark squatting. Confused? An example would be one man who thought he could keep the NFL’s Raiders in Oakland merely by applying for a trademark on “San Antonio Raiders,” where the team was rumored to relocate to. Stuff like that doesn’t work, primarily because you have to actually show a use of the trademark in commerce, or at least a valid intent to use it. You don’t get to go out and trademark something merely to sit on it and prevent someone else from using it.

Which brings us to the war between Israel and Hamas. The brutal conflict is raging once more, as are various political discussions around it. One phrase you are likely to have heard at some point is: “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.” To be clear, that phrase is a hateful, anti-Israel rallying cry that calls for the abolition of the state of Israel. That isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be a Palestinian state, of course, but to pretend like that statement calls for anything less than the destruction of Israel as a state is silly.

Equally silly is two Jewish men in America somehow thinking that they’re going to control the use of the phrase merely by trying to trademark it.

Two Jewish American men have submitted separate trademark applications for the expression “from the river to the sea,” triggering a flurry of reactions. A prominent legal expert has cautioned that the move might have unintended consequences for both the Jewish community and Israel.

Joel Ackerman and Oron Rosenkrantz filed trademark applications for the phrase that refers to the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories.

This is pointless at best, and potentially counterproductive to the goal at worst. It’s pointless for a number of reasons. For starters, it’s very unlikely that either trademark application will be approved at all. It’s a widely used political phrase that does nothing to serve as a source identifier of a good. But even if it were granted, it would be for an extremely limited type of goods, such as t-shirts and hats. No such mark would prevent the phrase from being said, chanted, written, nor used on all sorts of other products. It’s simply not going to stifle any real use of the phrase, so what’s the point?

“We don’t know for sure what the outcome will be, but the chances [of their receiving these trademarks] is not that good,” Katzenelson said. “Since it only applies to hats and shirts, stopping its use on other services and goods would be very difficult.”

The counterproductive piece is somewhat akin to the Streisand Effect. Whatever contact the general public has had with this anti-Israel message, now that message is being written and talked about all the more thanks to this attempt to trademark it. And there’s certainly no guarantee that those who come across the message, thanks to all of this, will take the same view of it as these two gentlemen.

Now, again, I don’t expect that these applications will be approved at all. But the point is that there was no reason to attempt any of this to begin with.

Filed Under: from the river to the sea, hamas, israel, palestine, trademark, trademark abuse, trademark squatting

New Israeli Law Makes Consuming ‘Terrorist’ Content A Criminal Offense

from the well-that's-a-mess dept

It’s amazing just how much war and conflict can change a country. On October 7th, Hamas blitzed Israel with an attack that was plainly barbaric. Yes, this is a conflict that has been simmering with occasional flashpoints for decades. No, neither side can even begin to claim it has entirely clean hands as a result of those decades of conflict. We can get the equivocating out of the way. October 7th was different, the worst single day of murder of the Jewish community since the Holocaust. And even in the immediate aftermath, those outside of Israel and those within knew that the attack was going to result in both an immediate reaction from Israel and longstanding changes within its borders. And those of us from America, or those that witnessed how our country reacted to 9/11, knew precisely how much danger this period of change represented.

It’s already started. First, Israel loosened the reins to allow once-blacklisted spyware companies to use their tools to help Israel find the hundreds of hostages Hamas claims to have taken. While that goal is perfectly noble, of course, the willingness to engage with more nefarious tools to achieve that end had begun. And now we learn that Israel’s government has taken the next step in amending its counterterrorism laws to make the consumption of “terrorist” content a criminal offense, punishable with jail time.

The bill, which was approved by a 13-4 majority in the Knesset, is a temporary two-year measure that amends Article 24 of the counterterrorism law to ban the “systematic and continuous consumption of publications of a terrorist organization under circumstances that indicate identification with the terrorist organization”.

It identifies the Palestinian group Hamas and the ISIL (ISIS) group as the “terrorist” organisations to which the offence applies. It grants the justice minister the authority to add more organisations to the list, in agreement with the Ministry of Defence and with the approval of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee.

Make no mistake, this is the institution of thought crime. Read those two paragraphs one more time and realize just how much the criminalization of consumption of materials relies on the judgement and interpretation of those enforcing it. What is systematic in terms of this law? What is a publication? What constitutes a “terrorist organization,” not in the case of Hamas and ISIL, but in that ominous bit at the end of the second paragraph, where more organizations can — and will — be added to this list?

And most importantly, how in the world is the Israeli government going to determine “circumstances that indicate identification with the terrorist organization?”

“This law is one of the most intrusive and draconian legislative measures ever passed by the Israeli Knesset since it makes thoughts subject to criminal punishment,” said Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. It warned that the amendment would criminalise “even passive social media use” amid a climate of surveillance and curtailment of free speech targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“This legislation encroaches upon the sacred realm of an individual’s personal thoughts and beliefs and significantly amplifies state surveillance of social media use,” the statement added. Adalah is sending a petition to the Supreme Court to challenge the bill.

This has all the hallmarks of America’s overreaction to the 9/11 attacks. We still haven’t unwound, not even close, all of the harm that was done in the aftermath of those attacks, all in the name of safety. We are still at a net-negative value in terms of our civil liberties due to that overreaction. President Biden even reportedly warned Israel not to ignore our own mistakes, but they’re doing it anyway.

And circling back to the first quotation and the claim that this law is temporary over a 2 year period, that’s just not how this works. If this law is allowed to continue to exist, it will be extended, and then extended again. The United States is still operating under the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 and used it in order to conduct strikes in Somalia under the Biden administration, two decades later.

The right to speech and thought is as bedrock a thing as exists for a democracy. If we accept that premise, then it is simply impossible to “protect a democracy” by limiting the rights of speech and thought. And that’s precisely what this new law in Israel does: it chips away at the democracy of the state in order to protect it.

That’s not how Israel wins this war, if that is in fact the goal.

Filed Under: hamas, israel, palestine, terrorism, terrorist content

Israel Gives Blacklisted Spyware Companies The Go-Ahead To Help It Track Israeli Hostages

from the not-just-a-tool-of-oppression! dept

Decades of somewhat-restrained conflict between Israel and Palestine erupted into war again at the beginning of the month. Islamist militant group Hamas followed rocket strikes with a physical invasion, the latter of which included the massacre of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Israeli civilians were also tortured and mutilated.

Hamas also allegedly kidnapped around 200 Israelis, including 30 children. I say “allegedly” because that’s what Hamas claims, not because I don’t believe Hamas is willing and able to kidnap 200 Israelis.

This horrific string of events has resulted in the Israeli government cautiously welcoming a couple of its most notorious resident tech companies back into the fold… at least for now. Here are more details from Gwen Ackerman and Marissa Newman for Bloomberg:

Israel’s security services are pulling in spyware companies, including the maker of the controversial Pegasus software, to help track hostages in the Gaza Strip, people familiar with the matter said.

NSO Group and Candiru, both of which are blacklisted by the US, are being asked to quickly upgrade their spyware capabilities to meet needs laid out by the country’s security forces, according to four cybersecurity industry sources and an Israeli government official. They, together with several other software firms, are collaborating on the requests and largely offering their services for free, said the people, who asked not to be identified because of they weren’t authorized to comment on military operations.

The Commerce Department blacklist — which followed weeks of negative coverage stemming from the apparent leak of “targets” of NSO customers — led to the Israeli government finally placing limits on who its native malware tech firms could sell to. This reversed the longstanding partnership in which the Israeli government helped NSO and others secure contracts with a variety of known human rights abusers in the Middle East.

It was a severely dysfunctional form of diplomacy, one that blew up in NSO Group’s face. Israel’s government suffered some collateral damage, having assisted a bunch of its former employees (most spyware firms in Israel were formed by former Israeli intelligence operatives) in making the world a worse place for everyone. The leaked list showed a lot of NSO customers weren’t using its powerful Pegasus spyware to track down dangerous criminals and terrorists. Instead, they were using it to spy on critics, journalists, legal advocates, political opponents, and anyone else who might somehow inconvenience those in power.

The fallout led to the government creating some distance between itself and the companies it had indirectly helped to create and directly helped to succeed.

Though Israel has never publicly severed ties with NSO and Candiru, the Israel Defense Forces dismissed some of their employees from military reserve duty after the firms were sanctioned in the US for helping authoritarian regimes track journalists and dissidents.

That gap has been closed a bit in recent weeks. Candiru states that it is volunteering the use of its spyware to help locate and track Israeli captives. The same thing goes for NSO.

NSO has the advantage. It’s Pegasus spyware is a zero-click exploit, which means it only needs to be sent to the phones of kidnapped citizens. It doesn’t require any interaction from the recipient.

While this may be capable of locating phones, it won’t necessarily locate people. No one kidnapped by Hamas would be allowed to keep their phone. However, their captors are certainly in possession of their phones and, in many cases, already have access to their contents. As long as the phones are useful to Hamas, the use of this spyware will allow the government to track the captors. If the phones have been disposed of for exactly this reason — i.e., the possibility they may be converted Israeli government surveillance devices — this effort will go nowhere.

That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. And it presents a case study for actually useful, non-harmful deployments of powerful cell phone exploits. This is the sort of situation where citizens would welcome government intrusion, and that’s when governments should be prepared to do things like this.

Obviously, it’s not a great way to make money. Both companies appear to be providing their spyware for free. No local company would want to appear to be making a buck on their fellow citizens’ misery… at least not in cases like these. That they’re willing to help their own government engage in domestic surveillance for truly harmful reasons shows what they’re willing to do for a buck, but they can be altruistic when the situation calls for it.

It’s very possible malware like NSO’s Pegasus exploit has helped law enforcement locate kidnapped people before. Great! But that has been the exception, rather than the rule. And the companies pitching in here know you can’t make good money helping out worthy causes or refusing to sell to autocrats or pulling the plug on contracts the moment any questionable uses are discovered.

So, we have what we have here: a worthwhile use of powerful spyware that will always be an anomaly, no matter how often exploit supplies like this are investigated, curtailed, or blacklisted. Hurting powerless people will always be more profitable than helping them. NSO and its competitors will live on, supplying autocrats with tools to silence criticism and stifle dissent. Because that’s where the money actually is.

Filed Under: commerce department, israel, palestine, pegasus, spyware, surveillance
Companies: candiru, nso group

Peering Through The Fog Of War With Open Source Intelligence

from the what-took-them-so-long? dept

“The fog of war” is a phrase that has been used for over a hundred years to describe the profound uncertainty that envelops armed conflicts while they are happening. Today, the uncertainty for non-combatants is exacerbated by the rapid-fire nature of social media, where people often like or re-post dubious war-related material without scrutinizing it first. The situation has become particularly bad on ExTwitter under Elon Musk’s stewardship, as a recent NewsGuard analysis published on Adweek revealed. The platform’s “verified” users pushed nearly three-quarters of the platform’s most viral false Israel-Hamas war-related claims, which were then spread widely by others:

The verified accounts promoted 10 false narratives, such as claims that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas and a video of Israeli senior officials being captured by Hamas.

Collectively, posts promoting false claims garnered 1,349,979 likes, reposts, replies and bookmarks, and were viewed by more than 100 million people globally in a week, per NewsGuard.

A recent example of how difficult it is to tease out what happened in a fast-moving conflict with many civilian casualties is the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. As Wired noted:

Within minutes, information about what had happened was distorted by partisan narratives, disinformation, and a rush to be first to post about the blast. Add in mainstream media outlets parroting official statements without verifying their veracity, and the result was a chaotic information environment in which no one was sure what had happened or how.

Open source intelligence – the analysis of information drawn from a variety of freely available sources, usually online – is emerging as one of the best ways to peer through the fog of war. For example both the Guardian newspaper and the UK’s Channel 4 news made use of open source intelligence in their attempts to work out who was responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza. One of the leading journalistic practitioners of data analysis, the FT’s John Burn-Murdoch, believes that the absence of OSINT is why many traditional media outlets are failing so badly in their reporting of the Israel-Hamas war and elsewhere. As he wrote in a thread on ExTwitter:

With the proliferation of photos/footage, satellite imagery and map data, forensic video/image analysis and geolocation (~OSINT) has clearly been a key news gathering technique for several years now. A key news gathering technique *completely absent from most newsrooms*

According to Burn-Murdoch, this has had a terrible effect not just on the quality of reporting, but on the public’s trust in journalism, already greatly diminished as a result of constant attacks on the media by populist politicians around the world:

most mainstream news orgs today are either simply not equipped to determine for themselves what’s happening in some of the world’s biggest stories, or lack the confidence to allow their in-house technical specialists to cast doubt on a star reporter’s trusted source

So you end up with situations where huge, respected news organisations are reporting as fact things that have already been shown by technically adept news gatherers outside newsrooms to be false or at the very least highly uncertain. It’s hugely damaging to trust in journalism.

It’s great that a leading exponent of data journalism like Burn-Murdoch is calling for mainstream media to make the use of open source intelligence a regular and integral part of their reporting. Doing so is especially important at a time when the fog of war is thick, as is the case in the Middle East today. But it’s a pity that it has taken this long for the power of OSINT to be recognized in this way. Techdirt first wrote about what is still probably the leading practitioner of open source intelligence analysis, Bellingcat, over eight years ago.

Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon.

Filed Under: bellingcat, data journalism, elon musk, ft, gaza, israel, middle east, open source intelligence, osint, palestine, twitter, war

Starbucks Joins The List Of Companies Using Trademark Law To Bully Its Own Union

from the not-how-that-works dept

The trend continues. One of the things we’ve noticed more frequently as of late has been larger companies attempting to use trademark law as some kind of cudgel against employee unions. This has taken several forms, from Wal-Mart attempting to shut down a union website for accurately calling itself a union of Wal-Mart employees, Medieval Times trying to shutter a website and merch for its performers’ union for the same reason, and Trader Joes attacking its employees’ union ostensibly for similar reasons, but really it just wanted to cause as much trouble and pain for the union as possible.

This case is admittedly different and, arguably, worse. In this case, Starbucks has threatened Starbucks Workers United with a trademark lawsuit principally, it appears, because the union started tweeting things the company doesn’t like about Gaza.

Starbucks is threatening to sue Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents employees of the coffee conglomerate, for trademark infringement following the union’s ‘Solidarity with Palestine!’ tweet.

Last week, a letter was sent to the president of the union demanding that the union ‘immediately cease and desist’ from using the company’s name and logo or the company will pursue legal action ‘including without limitation monetary damages.’

The tweet has since been deleted, but it read “Solidarity with Palestine!” and was sent in the midst of Israel’s response to a horrific terror attack launched by Hamas out of the Gaza Strip. Now, there is a lot to discuss about the history leading up to this conflict, actions that have been taken on both sides of the equation here, and all the rest. But this is not the forum for that discussion. Nor is the union’s opinion on matters of geo-politics in any way trespassing into the realm of trademark law. In other words, the union’s activities don’t suddenly become trademark infringement simply because it tweeted out something Starbucks doesn’t like, even if you don’t like it either.

It appears the lawyers for Starbucks don’t understand that.

The lawyers wrote that because the union had made ‘statements advocating for violence in the Middle East,’ they must change their name, website address, social media accounts, merchandise, and anything else the features their logo.

The union president Lynne Fox wrote in a response that the company had not managed to ‘identify any such statement.’ She added that Starbucks Workers United is affiliated with SEIU, the president of which issued a statement that read:

‘The violence in Israel and Palestine is unconscionable. @SEIU stands with all who are suffering, while strongly condemning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia & hate in all forms.’

This is a complete non-starter and I’ll be surprised if any lawsuit is actually filed. That being said, executives at the company are insisting a lawsuit will be filed in federal court over all of this. If it does, it will clearly be a lawsuit designed to stop the speech rights of the union through punitive action.

And all the same arguments as to why the union is not infringing simply by calling itself a union for laborers of the company, nor is the branding it chose for itself that has some similarity to the corporate branding, because nobody will be mislead or confused as to the affiliation of a big company and the union it desperately wishes didn’t exist.

Filed Under: bullying, free speech, gaza, hamas, israel, palestine, trademark, unions
Companies: starbucks, starbucks workers united

Content Moderation Case Study: Twitter Briefly Restricts Account Of Writer Reporting From The West Bank (2021)

from the mistakes-were-made dept

Summary: In early May 2021, writer and researcher Mariam Barghouti was reporting from the West Bank on escalating conflicts between Israeli forces and Palestinian protestors, and making frequent social media posts about her experiences and the events she witnessed. Amidst a series of tweets from the scene of a protest, shortly after one in which she stated “I feel like I’m in a war zone,” Barghouti’s account was temporarily restricted by Twitter. She was unable to post new tweets, and her bio and several of her recent tweets were replaced with a notice stating that the account was “temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy”.

The incident was highlighted by other writers, some of whom noted that the nature of the restriction seemed unusual, and the incident quickly gained widespread attention. Fellow writer and researcher Joey Ayoub tweeted that Barghouti had told him the restriction would last for 12 hours according to Twitter, and expressed concern for her safety without access to a primary communication channel in a dangerous situation.

The restriction was lifted roughly an hour later. Twitter told Barghouti (and later re-stated to VICE’s Motherboard) that the enforcement action was a “mistake” and that there was “no violation” of the social media platform’s policies. Motherboard also asked Twitter to clarify which specific policies were initially believed to have been violated, but says the company “repeatedly refused”.

Company Considerations:

Issue Considerations:

Resolution: Though the account restriction was quickly reversed by Twitter, many observers did not accept the company’s explanation that it was an error, instead saying the incident was part of a broader pattern of social media platforms censoring Palestinians. Barghouti said:

_“I think if I was not someone with visibility on social media, that this would not have garnered the attention it did. The issue isn’t the suspension of my account, rather the consideration that Palestinian accounts have been censored generally but especially these past few weeks as we try to document Israeli aggressions on the ground.”

Filed Under: content moderation, israel, journalism, mariam barghouti, palestine, reporting, warzones
Companies: twitter

Unilever Sends Letter To Firm In Israel Over Use Of 'Ben & Jerry's' Trademark

from the we-all-scream dept

A couple of weeks back, we discussed 2021’s thus-far dumbest controversy: Ben & Jerry’s ceasing to sell ice cream in “occupied Palestinian territory”. The ice cream maker is owned by Unilver and found itself in intellectual property news after a law firm in Israel seized upon Ben & Jerry’s announcement to not sell its wares in a few sections of Israel to suggest that meant it was relinquishing its trademark. To that end, the firm sought to register a company it named “Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream of Judea and Samaria.” This action was part of a possibly coordinated attack response on the company, which included action in the States such as Florida Man Governor Ron DeSantis suggesting this meant B&J’s was “boycotting Israel” and should be scrutinized for that, and Jewish leaders indicating that B&J’s ice cream may lose its kosher rating.

As I said, all very stupid. But the trademark claim might be the dumbest of them all. Trademark laws are designed to keep the public from being confused as to a source of a good and the Israeli firm’s actions appear to achieve the exact opposite end. It’s also the case that, in general, trademark law doesn’t simply repeal a valid trademark simply because a company temporarily ceases to sell a good in one small section of a geographic area for which it’s registered.

And, so, it’s should come as no surprise that Unilever has sent a letter to the firm, Shurat HaDin, warning that it intends to protect its valid marks.

“Unilever unequivocally rejects all your assertions set forth therein including that Univeler has abandoned its trademark rights for Ben & Jerry’s in what you refer to as the Judea and Samaria region of Israel.” A letter dated August 12 reads, signed by Natalia Cavaliere, in response to a letter sent by Shurat HaDin’s President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner that reads.

“Please note that we deem any use of the trademark or tradename Ben & Jerry’s to be a violation of our intellectual property rights.” The letter continues.

As well it should. B&J’s nor Unilever have not abandoned their trademarks in Israel in the slightest. Ceasing sales in these regions doesn’t change that. And it should be obvious to anyone looking at this story and its genesis that this is part of a practice among some in Israel to create diplomatic pressure on private entities that say or do anything they don’t like when it comes to Israeli politics.

Those politics, while certainly important on the global stage, have nothing to do with Unilever’s trademark rights. Which everyone, including Shurat HaDin, absolutely knows. Hopefully the Israeli government can correctly dispense justice.

Filed Under: ben & jerry's, israel, palestine, trademark, use in commerce
Companies: ben & jerry's, unilever

Israel, Ice Cream, Trademarks: This Year's Dumbest Controversy Results In Trademark Skullduggery

from the you-scream dept

Welcome to this year’s dumbest controversy thus far. A couple of weeks ago, famed ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would no longer be selling its products in “occupied Palestinian territory.” Indicating that doing so would not align with the company’s values, the idea here was that settlements that infringed on territory that was deemed to belong to the Palestinians by international law would be off the company’s radar. Not all of Israel, mind you. Just the occupied territories. And that is when everyone lost their god damned minds. Ron DeSantis is seeking to have Florida put B&J and its parent company, Unilever, on a list of companies that should be scrutinized for “boycotting Israel”. Jewish leaders indicated that the kosher rating of the ice cream could be altered for the same reason. Except that isn’t what B&J are doing. It isn’t boycotting Israel at all. It’s simply refusing to sell its product in small sections of land that Israel currently occupies.

And where this gets into Techdirt territory is that one law firm in Israel is going to so far as to try to screw with Ben & Jerry’s trademark rights, arguing now that it can use the B&J trademarks in those territories because the company isn’t selling products there any longer.

Ben & Jerry’s is on its way to losing ownership of its brand in the settlements. The law association Shurat HaDin has submitted a request to the Registrar of Companies to register a company called “Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream of Judea and Samaria.” This would be in keeping with US law under which a company loses the right to trademark protection in areas in which it has stopped selling its product.

The law firm informed food giant Unilever that since it had given up selling Ben & Jerry’s ice creams in the “West Bank,” under US law, it had lost the right to protect the Ben & Jerry’s trademark in those areas. Shurat HaDin has already submitted an application to the Israeli Registrar of Companies to register the new brand “Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream of Judea and Samaria,” which will receive legal protection to sell the exact same ice cream, with the same trade name, and actually compete with the original company.

It should be obvious that this is absolutely not what trademark law is for. What is happening here is some combination of extortion and punishment simply because a private company has taken a very small stance on an international issue. This is typical of the maximal response that tends to be trotted out when Israel encounters these types of scenarios. I’ve heard this described by foreign policy experts as a form of “diplomatic deterrence”, where a minor issue generates a response that’s dialed to eleven simply to deter any like-minded companies or actors from taking the same actions.

But that, again, is not what trademark law is designed to do. It’s designed to keep the public from being confused as to what they’re buying. And it’s hard to imagine a more perfect scenario for creating public confusion than a fraction of territory being sold B&J branded ice cream that isn’t legit while the rest of the country gets the legit stuff. And the idea that US law is being used to do all of this makes this all the more infuriating.

Shurat HaDin examined and found that under US law, in order to preserve the protection of a trademarked brand against use by other parties, there must be full intention to conduct business in a particular area. That is, in cases where a commercial brand is intended only to prevent another party from using the same label, without having any intention of operating in the same area, its request will not be approved. Therefore, once that person announces that he does not intend to operate in the same area, it means that he has no intention of using his trademark and his right to trademark will no longer stand.

It’s not that simple, obviously. And hopefully the Trademark Office and any courts that might get involved will see this for the skullduggery that it absolutely is. Whatever stances you might want to take on political issues related to this, this simply isn’t what trademark laws are for.

Filed Under: ben & jerry's, ice cream, israel, palestine, trademark
Companies: ben and jerry's, unilever