PORT TOWNSEND -- Nothing good would come from a Port Townsend Food Co-op boycott of Israeli products in protest of Israel's political policies toward the Palestinian state, an Israeli envoy said Sunday.
The action of politically pressuring Israel through a local boycott "won't really do anything to provide peace," Gideon Lustig, Israel's deputy consul general for the West Coast and Northwest, told an audience of more than 100 at Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
"Getting [a few] Israeli products out of the shop is tagging Israel as an apartheid country in the Middle East, and that doesn't get anybody anywhere," Lustig said.
The proposal to boycott Israeli goods will be considered by the six-member Food Co-op board at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the same Quimper Universalist hall where Lustig spoke.
Lustig said he hopes to meet with co-op board members Tuesday before they act on the matter.
"I feel I can provide members of the co-op board information that is valuable to help them make a decision," he said.
Israeli interpretation
Calling for a boycott might not be anti-Semitic by intent, but "the actual outcome of what they are doing is labeling a democratic country" and singling it out, which he said can be interpreted as anti-Semitic by the Israeli people.
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