Jerry Greenfield, co -founder of Ben & Jerry on conflicts in Unilever

Jerry Greenfield, co-founder for the Ben & Jerry company, left the company, where the gap with the father of Unilever has grown on its position on the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza.

His partner, Ben Cohen, shared Greenfield’s open message on Wednesday, saying it was a “difficult decision.” Greenfield was with the company for 47 years.

“This is one of the most difficult and most painful decisions that I have ever made,” Greenfield wrote in the letter. “This is not because I lost my love for people in Ben and Jerry. On the contrary.”

He went on to say that when Unilever bought the company more than 20 years ago, it was “the content of” Ben & Jerry “independence to follow our values.

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Greenfield said he could no longer “good conscience” continues to work for a “silenced” company by Unilever. He also called Current management, She said it was “attacking civil rights, voting rights, immigrants and women’s rights, and LGBTQ.”

UNIEVER and Ben & Jerry have clashed since 2021, when an ice cream maker said he would stop sales in West Bank.

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Since then, the brand has filed a lawsuit against parents for the alleged efforts to silence it and described the Gaza struggle as “genocide”, a rare position for a major American company.

A spokeswoman for Magnum Ice Cream Company, Unile’s Ice Cream, told Reuters that she “does not agree to a Greenfield perspective and has sought to involve the founders participating in a constructive conversation on how to enhance the powerful Ben & Jerry position in the world.”

Magnum said that Greenfield stepped down as the brand ambassador and that he was not a party to the lawsuit.

Fairmont -based Ben & Jerry’s was founded by Cohen and Greenfield at a renovated gas station in 1978, and maintained its socially conscious mission after it was bought by Unilever in 2000.

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“It was always more than just Ice cream; It was a way to spread love and invite others to struggle for stocks, justice and a better world, ”Greenfield wrote.

Fox Business continues to comment for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.