Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Ben & Jerry’s chair: ‘When people are occupied resistance is justified!’

The comment comes from Anuradha Mittal, whom the ice-cream company calls “an internationally renowned expert on human rights.”

Ben & Jerry's ice-cream in a grocery-store freezer. Credit: Ho Su A Bi/Shutterstock.com.
Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream in a grocery-store freezer. Credit: Ho Su A Bi/Shutterstock.com.

The board chair of Ben & Jerry’s, touted by the ice-cream company as an “internationally renowned expert on human rights, agriculture, development and conservation policies issues,” appears to have endorsed a terrorist organization that the United States has designated as such for 26 years.

“When people are occupied resistance is justified!” wrote Anuradha Mittal on social media. She tagged the post with “Free Palestine” and “ceasefire now.”

Mittal has been with the company since 2007 and is the founder of the progressive think tank the Oakland Institute.

Israel is waging a war against Hamas, which the United States designated as a terrorist organization in 1997. Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, murdering, torturing and kidnapping civilians, including babies, in the worst one-day anti-Jewish attack since the Holocaust.

The ice-cream company was founded in Burlington, Vt., some 45 years ago by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, both septuagenarian Jews. Ben & Jerry’s boycotts Israel, having halted sales in Judea and Samaria, and part of Jerusalem.

It wasn’t clear whether those associated with the company had previously served up efforts to boycott Israel with the endorsement of a terrorist organization that recently beheaded, tortured and raped civilians, and took hostages to the Gaza Strip.

During a heated exchange at a conference on conflict-related sexual violence, Israel’s ambassador accused senior United Nations representatives of bias against the Jewish state.
One of the soldiers was killed in an incident in which two others were critically injured and an officer was moderately injured.
“Hezbollah is Iran’s long arm and they don’t want a cease fire,” the ambassador said.
“IDF soldiers must stand between Hezbollah and Israeli civilians. We will not wait for the next attack to reach our homes.”
The Jewish state, by contrast, absorbed Holocaust survivors, Jews expelled from Arab states and others who did not maintain their refugee status.
U.S.-Iran talks have been postponed after an explosive drone killed four Israeli soldiers in Southern Lebanon.