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Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Steps Down in Protest of Corporate Owner's Attempts to 'Silence' Duo's Gaza Activism
"Ben & Jerry's has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power," said co-founder Jerry Greenfield.
Sep 17, 2025
Jerry Greenfield, the lifelong political activist and co-founder of the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's, is quitting the company in protest against what he says are efforts by parent company Unilever to "silence" his advocacy for progressive causes, particularly for Palestinians amid Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.
"I can no longer, in good conscience, and after 47 years, remain an employee of Ben & Jerry's," Greenfield said in a statement posted Tuesday by his longtime partner Ben Cohen. "This is one of the hardest and most painful decisions I've ever made."
The Vermont-based ice cream company was acquired by Unilever, a British conglomerate, in 2000, at which time Greenfield says the company "guaranteed" him and his partner the "independence to pursue our values." Though the pair no longer had a financial stake in the company, which they founded in 1978, they remained on as board members and brand ambassadors.
"For more than twenty years under their ownership, Ben & Jerry's stood up and spoke out in support of peace, justice, and human rights, not as abstract concepts, but in relation to real events happening in our world," Greenfield said. "That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever, one that enshrined our social mission and values in the company's governance structure in perpetuity."
The relationship between Ben & Jerry's and its parent company began to fracture as Cohen and Greenfield became increasingly outspoken advocates against Israel's human rights abuses in Palestine.
In 2021, the duo announced that it would stop selling its ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in protest of Israel's occupation of those territories, which is widely recognized as illegal under international law. Several US states with laws punishing boycotts of Israel began to pull their investments in Unilever, which rushed to reaffirm that it was “firmly committed” to Israel.
In order to bypass the pair's boycott, Unilever sold the Israeli portion of Ben & Jerry's to a distributor in the country, which promptly resumed distribution in the Occupied Territories. The duo launched a lawsuit against their parent company in hopes of stopping the deal.
The rift would intensify further after October 7, 2023, when, following Hamas' attack against Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government responded with a crushing military onslaught against the Gaza Strip that has now resulted in at least 220,000 casualties according to one former Israeli general.
Ben & Jerry's would file another lawsuit in 2024 alleging that Unilever, on several occasions, used threats and intimidation to stop them from speaking out on the conflict, which they referred to as a "genocide."
They said Unilever threatened to dismantle the company's board if it issued statements calling for "peace" and a "ceasefire," imposed restrictions on their statements in support of pro-Palestine student demonstrators, and stopped them from donating company funds to human rights organizations. Ben & Jerry's would later claim that Unilever fired its CEO, David Stever in March 2025 in retaliation for the brand's activism.
This past May, Cohen was arrested, along with six others, for disrupting a US Senate hearing in protest of Washington's continued sale of weapons to Israel, which at that point had begun outlining plans to fully remove Palestinians from Gaza with support from President Donald Trump.
Unilever distanced itself from Cohen's actions, saying they were "on his own as an individual and not on behalf of Ben & Jerry's or Unilever."
Greenfield's departure comes as Unilever plans to fold Ben & Jerry's into a new entity known as the Magnum Ice Cream Company, which is set to be listed on the stock market in November. In response to the merger, Ben & Jerry's called for its brand to be "freed" from the conglomerate.
"They're ripping the heart out of Ben & Jerry's," Cohen said last week while brandishing a picket sign. "All we're asking is for them to sell the company to a group of people who support the values of Ben & Jerry's."
Magnum rejected this request, saying, "Ben & Jerry’s is a proud part of the Magnum Ice Cream Company and is not for sale."
"It's profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone," Greenfield said in his resignation note. "And it's happening at a time when our country's current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community."
"Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important," he continued, "and yet Ben & Jerry's has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power. It's easy to stand up and speak out when there's nothing at risk."
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Trump DOJ Gives Monopolist UnitedHealth a Green Light to Swallow Yet Another Competitor
"As a result, Big Medicine will profit at the expense of vulnerable hospice patients, some of whom will pay with their lives, and the workers who care for them."
Aug 08, 2025
The Trump Justice Department on Thursday paved the way for yet another corporate merger, this time settling a Biden-era legal challenge that aimed to block UnitedHealth Group from adding the home health and hospice care provider Amedisys to its eye-popping list of subsidiaries.
The DOJ's Antitrust Division, which is under siege by lobbyists connected to the White House, said the settlement would require UnitedHealth and Amedisys to "divest 164 home health and hospice locations across 19 states." The deal, which must be approved by a judge, would also require Amedisys to "pay a $1.1 million civil penalty to the United States for falsely certifying that it had provided 'true, correct, and complete' responses under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976."
The settlement was announced on the same day that Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) launched an investigation into UnitedHealth, specifically probing the company's alleged practice of incentivizing nursing homes to slash patient care costs.
Warren was among those who criticized the UnitedHealth-Amedisys settlement, writing on social media that she "sounded the alarm about UnitedHealth's attempt to purchase this home health giant years ago."
"This is another half-baked merger settlement by the Trump DOJ—this time at the expense of the most vulnerable," Warren added. "The public deserves to know if this deal is based on political favors."
"It claims to divest home health and hospice care providers in overlapping markets but, in actuality, cedes them to similarly conflicted buyers, including a highly leveraged private equity firm."
The settlement came as the Trump Justice Department is under growing scrutiny for terminating or sidelining top antitrust officials and acquiescing to lobbyists fighting DOJ merger lawsuits.
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Justice Department dropped an antitrust case against American Express Global Business Travel, a company that has paid Ballard Partners—Attorney General Pam Bondi's former lobbying firm—hundreds of thousands of dollars this year to pressure the DOJ on antitrust matters.
Ballard has also been paid big money this year by UnitedHealth, far and away the most powerful healthcare company in the U.S. According to a recent analysis by the Center for Health and Democracy, UnitedHealth currently has around 2,700 subsidiaries, giving it a foothold in virtually every aspect of the U.S. healthcare system.
The legal challenge against UnitedHealth's proposed $3.3 billion acquisition of Amedisys was brought in November 2024 by the Biden Justice Department alongside the attorneys general of Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, each of whom backed the Trump DOJ's settlement.
Upon announcing the challenge, then-Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter—the head of the Biden DOJ's Antitrust Division—warned that "unless this $3.3 billion transaction is stopped, UnitedHealth Group will further extend its grip to home health and hospice care, threatening seniors, their families, and nurses."
Emma Freer, senior policy analyst for healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement Thursday that "the DOJ was right to challenge this deal, which would eliminate head-to-head competition that lowers costs, improves care quality, and betters working conditions for nurses and other caregivers."
"This settlement abandons that goal and caves to UnitedHealth Group, one of the most dangerous monopolists in American healthcare," said Freer. "It claims to divest home health and hospice care providers in overlapping markets but, in actuality, cedes them to similarly conflicted buyers, including a highly leveraged private equity firm."
"As a result," Freer added, "Big Medicine will profit at the expense of vulnerable hospice patients, some of whom will pay with their lives, and the workers who care for them."
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Critics Doubt CBS Claim That Finances—Not Politics—Are Behind 'Late Show' Cancellation
The network announced the cancellation three days after host Stephen Colbert lambasted its parent company for a $16 million legal settlement with President Donald Trump.
Jul 18, 2025
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was among those calling into question the official story behind CBS' cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Thursday—suggesting that the decision to end the show's 32-year run wasn't driven by finances but by "political reasons."
The announcement from CBS executives came just three days after Colbert spoke out on his show about a recent $16 million settlement reached by CBS parent company Paramount over an interview that "60 Minutes" aired with former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election, in which Harris ran against President Donald Trump.
Colbert had told his audience that the settlement appeared to be a "big fat bribe" to end a "nuisance lawsuit."
"This all comes as Paramount's owners are trying to the get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner," said Colbert, referring to a pending $8.4 billion merger with the entertainment company Skydance—whose billionaire founder, David Ellison, has been spotted with Trump in recent months.
Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday that the public "deserves to know if [Colbert's] show was canceled for political reasons."
Trump's lawsuit against Paramount claimed the Harris interview was deceptively edited and amounted to "partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference," allegations that legal experts and First Amendment scholars denounced as "ridiculous" and "dangerous."
After the settlement was announced earlier this month, with Paramount pledging to release transcripts of future "60 Minutes" interviews with presidential candidates, one press freedom group condemned the company for "capitulating" to the president's demands.
CBS executives appeared to preemptively respond to expected allegations that they were canceling Colbert's show due to his criticism of the settlement—and his frequent rebukes of the president—saying the decision, effective in May 2026, was "purely a financial" one.
"It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount," they said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) expressed doubt that the end of Colbert's show, days after he spoke out against his parent company's legal decision, was "a coincidence."
Media critics joined lawmakers including Sanders and Warren in expressing skepticism.
"'The Late Show' isn't dying because people stopped watching late-night TV," wrote Parker Molloy at The New Republic. "It's being murdered because Stephen Colbert spent the last decade being one of Trump's most persistent critics on network television, and the billionaires about to take over CBS need Trump's approval for their merger."
Anonymous "Late Show" staffers also told The Independent they believed the cancellation of the show was "part and parcel of the Trump shakedown settlement."
Political scientist Norman Ornstein called the impending end of "The Late Show," considering the surrounding circumstances, "a terrible sign for democracy."
"There's only one reason to do this, and we know what it is," said Ornstein. "The same reason that this disgraceful excuse for a network succumbed to blackmail from Trump over the '60 Minutes' interview."
Trump, whose Federal Communications Commission is still deciding on approval of the merger, weighed in on Friday regarding the show's cancellation, saying in a social media post, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired," and criticizing other late-night comedians who have taken aim at him.
As Status News reported after the Paramount settlement was announced, speculation has increased that comedian Jon Stewart, who co-hosts "The Daily Show"—where Colbert spent several years—could also "soon be silenced" after publicly criticizing the settlement. That show airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by the CBS parent company.
"Inside 'The Daily Show,' I'm told staffers have taken pride that Stewart showed once again he is willing to stand up to powerful interests, even if it potentially risks his future employment," wrote Oliver Darcy. "And while they may not yet know it, inside certain power circles, there is an open question: How much longer will Stewart have this platform?"
MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes said Friday that it is not "an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions."
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