Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen said Tuesday he is creating a new ice cream flavor to promote “permanent peace” in Palestine, and is asking for suggestions on its ingredients, name, and carton design.
Ben & Jerry’s is well-known for its calls for activism on various causes, and Cohen said the brand was blocked from making a flavor for Palestine by its parent company, Unilever. Cohen also said the ceasefire deal reached in Gaza earlier this month is “a welcome relief,” but more work needs to be done.
“So I’m doing what they couldn’t. I’m making a watermelon-flavored ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and calls for repairing all the damage that was done there. And I’m doing this to shine a light on the experience of Palestinian people and children in particular, so the world does not look the other way,” Cohen said in a video on X.
Cohen’s use of watermelon likely refers to how activists and social media users have used watermelons to advocate for Palestine. The fruit’s colors, red, green, white, and black, are the same colors used in Palestine’s flag.
Cohen said he wants help with this flavor, asking social media users to come up with what ingredients to use and what to call the new ice cream flavor. He is also asking for suggestions on creating a cartoon graphic for the flavor’s label.
Cohen’s announcement comes about a month after fellow Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield said he is leaving the ice cream brand. Greenfield said Ben & Jerry’s is being “silenced,” and he would continue to work toward “equity, justice and a better world” outside the brand.
In May, Cohen was among several protesters disrupting a Senate hearing for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cohen appeared to be shouting, “You’re killing poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by cutting Medicaid for kids here,” as Capitol Police escorted him out.
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In addition to promoting peace in Palestine, Cohen and Greenfeld have advocated for other political causes, including returning lands to Native American tribes and “gender-affirming care.”