BDS Targets Small Food Co-Ops - considers them easy targets

BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel led by Palestinian activists) has chosen to harass one small, rural American Food Co-Op after another as a way to get their slanted, political message out against Israel.  Their propaganda includes outlandish accusations against Israel, including:

• Calling Israel racist (despite the fact that Israel is a multi-racial society where all citizens have equal rights, including women, people of color, people from other countries of origin, homosexuals, Israeli Palestinians, etc.).
• Likening Israel to South African apartheid (which is ridiculous since Israel is an enduring democracy where everyone belongs to unions and where the country strives for full equality for all its people, regardless of race, gender, country of origin, etc.).
• Claiming that Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian women and children with little concern for their well-being (which of course is sad when it happens, but Israel is not the only country at war, facing civilian casualties during military operations). The Israeli military strives to conduct its operations with a high concern for civilian populations. It treats in its hospitals Palestinian civilians injured during military operations.
• Claiming that the security precautions put up by Israel around Palestinian Gaza are unfair (even though the radical Hamas - the party that leads the people in Gaza - wants to destroy Israel and continues to continually shoot rockets at Israel). Egypt also closed its border around Gaza to maintain security for its people.
• Claiming that the solider who hit Rachel Corey with a bulldozer did so with murderous intent. Rachel Corey was protesting and stepped in front of the bulldozer while it was demolishing Palestinian buildings as part of security operations. She is not the only Rachel who has died as a result of the Palestinian conflict - in fact there are many Israeli Rachels who have died and yet they have no international attention paid to their deaths. In this way, Rachel Corey's memory is being used as blatant propaganda by the Palestinian-led BDS movement.
• Claiming that Israel has no right to search shipments into Gaza. The fact is that Israel searches these shipments to confirm that they do not include weapons. Israel brings in tons of supplies and food into Gaza daily.

The BDS movement knows that small, rural communities have members on boards and product review committees, who are ill prepared to defend themselves against the onslaught of this very organized political organization. The "boycott Israeli products" proposals are brought to these rural Food Co-Ops, many of which have never previously dealt with a boycott proposal. They disrupt communities causing all kinds of divisions among its residents with one goal in mind - to cause injury to Israel.