Ben and Jerry’s cofounder removed from Senate in Gaza protest

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's, centre, is arrested by Department of Homeland Security Police for blocking the entrance to the Department of Justice during a protest in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo)

WASHINGTON — Ben Cohen, co‑founder of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and a longtime progressive activist, told AFP he was speaking for millions of Americans outraged by the “slaughter” in Gaza after his removal from a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday.

Cohen, 74, was among a group of protesters who startled Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by interrupting his testimony about his department’s budget proposal.

Shouting that “Congress pays for bombs to kill children in Gaza” while lawmakers move to slash Medicaid -- the health insurance program for low‑income families -- the businessman and philanthropist was placed in handcuffs by Capitol Police.

He urged senators to press Israel to let food reach “starving kids” as he was led away.

“It got to a point where we had to do something,” Cohen said in an interview after his release, calling it “scandalizing” that the U.S. approved “US$20 billion worth of bombs” for Israel even as social programs are squeezed back home.

“The majority of Americans hate what’s going on, what our country is doing with our money and in our name,” he said.

U.S. public opinion toward Israel has become increasingly unfavourable, especially among Democrats, according to a Pew Research Center Poll last month.

Beyond the spending, Cohen framed the issue as a moral and “spiritual” breach.

“Condoning and being complicit in the slaughter of tens of thousands of people strikes at the core of us as far as human beings and what our country stands for,” he said, pointing to the fact that the United States pours roughly half its discretionary budget into war‑related spending.

“If you spent half of that money making lives better around the world, I think there’d be a whole lot less friction.”

Invoking a parenting analogy, he added: “You go to a three-year-old who goes around hitting people and you say ‘Use your words.’ There’s issues between countries but you can work them out without killing.”

A longtime critic of Israeli policy, Cohen last year joined prominent Jewish figures in an open letter opposing the pro‑Israel lobby AIPAC. “I understand that I have a higher profile than most people and so I raise my voice, it gets heard. But I need you and others to understand that I speak for millions of people who feel the same way.”

Israel’s war in Gaza began after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.

Gaza is at “critical risk of famine,” with the entire population facing a food crisis after more than two months of an Israeli aid blockade, and 22 per cent facing a humanitarian “catastrophe,” a UN-backed food security monitor warned this week.

Article written by Issam Ahmed, Agence France-Presse