You do not expect that two men who founded an ice cream company would be political experts. But you would expect them not to make fools of themselves when they do decide to become political activists. Ben and Jerry failed that test.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s and progressive activists, sat down with Alexi McCammond of Axios and discussed their company’s decision to stop selling ice cream in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in protest of the Israeli “occupation.” (Cohen and Greenfield no longer control the company but are its “social conscience,” according to Axios). Things fell off the rails very quickly.
Cohen and Greenfield stumbled over McCammond questioning if they were really making a stand and why they hadn’t stopped selling ice cream in all of Israel. When McCammond then pressed them over why they were still selling ice cream in Georgia despite the state’s election law and in Texas despite its abortion ban, the best response Cohen could muster after a long pause was, “I don’t know.”
Cohen somehow followed it up with a worse admission. “I don’t know what that would accomplish,” he said, seemingly contradicting the company’s principled stand against Israeli occupation. He later added, “By that reasoning, we should not sell any ice cream anywhere.”
The entire segment raises more questions than answers. Why, if Israel is in violation of international law, as Greenfield points out, are they selling ice cream in Israel at all? Why is not selling ice cream in East Jerusalem and the West Bank a meaningful stand but doing the same in Texas or Georgia wouldn’t do anything? And why are two ice-cream men telling us they are “working on these issues?”
It was a bafflingly bad exchange for a pair of men who pride themselves on their outspoken political views. It’s an example of corporate hypocrisy when it comes to political advocacy that could not be scripted any better. Cohen all but outright stated that the company was solely interested in “virtue signaling.” Perhaps Ben and Jerry would be better off if they simply stuck to sweets.
