BURSTBen & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen blamed United States-supplied bombs for contributing to “genocide” in Gaza amid Israel's war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“What's going on in Israel right now is genocide with our bombs," said Cohen, adding "the American people have become complicit in the genocide that Israel is engaging in, and if it weren't for us providing the bombs, they wouldn't be able to do it.”
Cohen, who has long been critical of Israel military operations in Gaza, offered the comments during a Wednesday appearance on NewsNation’s show “Cuomo” that followed his arrest over disrupting a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee where Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was testifying.
Cohen stood up in the seating area and screamed, “Congress pays for bombs.” He was then taken away by Capitol Police officers.
The ice cream giant’s co-founder said his protest on Wednesday had nothing to do with Kennedy, but with U.S. military support for Israel.
“What it had to do with is that Congress has been cutting money for Medicaid, health care for poor kids. And they're using the money they save doing that to bomb other poor kids in Gaza and, and now, you know, there's, there's this, they're halting all the food aid that's going in, so they're starving the people of Gaza,” Cohen told host Chris Cuomo.
The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed humanitarian organization, said on Wednesday that it struck an agreement with Israeli officials to start bringing in aid before May ends.
"The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) today announced that it will launch operations in the Gaza Strip before the end of the month. This follows discussions with Israeli officials to allow the flow of transitional aid into Gaza under existing mechanisms while construction of GHF's Secure Distribution Sites (SDS) is completed," the group said in a statement.
The UN was warned that food supplies in the war-torn enclave could dry up soon. Israel has blocked the entry of medicine, fuel and food into Gaza, arguing it is looking to pressure Hamas to release hostages and has accused the militant group, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, of diverting resources once they are sent into the enclave.
Cohen agreed that hostages need to be released, but added, “that's no justification to kill tens of thousands of children, old people, mothers, fathers, you know, people just like us.”
When asked by Cuomo about his belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Cohen said “all the hospitals have been destroyed, all the universities have been destroyed, the schools have been destroyed, the housing has been destroyed, and tens of thousands of people have been killed.”
“And you can't tell me that they're all members of Hamas. I don't believe that,” the businessman said.