Ben & Jerry's sues parent company Unilever over Gaza advocacy muzzle

The American ice cream manufacturer Ben and Jerry's has filed a lawsuit against parent company Unilever over the latter’s attempts to silence its support for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and threats to dismantle its board and sue its members over the issue.

According to the lawsuit lodged in a New York federal court on Wednesday, Ben & Jerry's said Unilever breached the terms of a previous agreement that gave the Vermont-based ice cream maker responsibility over its “social mission.”

Despite this, Ben & Jerry's said it was silenced four separate times when it tried calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, advocating for halting US military aid to the Tel Aviv regime, supporting students protesting at US colleges and universities against the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza,  and supporting the safe passage of Palestinian refugees from Gaza to Britain.

“Ben & Jerry's has on four occasions attempted to publicly speak out in support of peace and human rights,” the lawsuit read. “Unilever has silenced each of these efforts.”

In the lawsuit, Ben & Jerry's also said Peter ter Kulve, Unilever's head of ice cream, was concerned that the company being vocally critical of the war on Gaza could lead to a “continued perception of anti-Semitism.”

BDS movement hails Ben & Jerry’s action against Israel

The BDS movement has hailed American company Ben & Jerry’s decision to not sell ice cream in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Unilever was also required under the 2022 settlement agreement to make a total of $5 million in payments to Ben & Jerry’s for the brand to make donations to human rights groups of its choosing, according to the lawsuit.

Ben & Jerry’s selected the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), among others.

Unilever in August objected to the selections, saying that JVP was “too critical" of the Israeli regime, according to the lawsuit.

In a Thursday statement, CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo lauded Ben & Jerry’s for "its commitment to human rights and for resisting efforts to silence its advocacy for justice." 

"Unilever’s actions represent a dangerous precedent of corporate censorship that aims to suppress voices supporting Palestinian rights, particularly at a time when the global community must stand against genocide and oppression," she said. 

Tensions between Ben & Jerry's and Unilever have brewed for years. A rift erupted between the two in 2021 after Ben & Jerry’s said it would stop selling its products at illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. It said at the time that selling its products in those settlements was “inconsistent” with the company's values.

The move led Unilever to sell the ice cream business in the Israeli-occupied lands to its local licensee for an undisclosed sum.

To stop this from happening, Ben & Jerry's filed a lawsuit against Unilever to block the sale of its business interests.

Eventually, the two sides reached a settlement in December 2022, which has continued to remain confidential.

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