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.

Olympia Food Co-Op uses questionable process to reach a vote

Olympia co-op votes to boycott Israeli products Joel Magalnick • Editor, JTNews Posted: July 21, 2010

Advocates are touting it as a first within the grocery co-op movement: The Olympia Food Co-op’s board voted on July 15 to boycott Israeli-made products from its shelves. Jewish community leaders in the state’s capital said they were surprised and disappointed by the announcement, but also had larger concerns about the way the vote was handled.

“On the one hand, I’m troubled by it because I don’t agree with the outcome. I don’t support boycott as a tactic,” said Rabbi Seth Goldstein of the Reconstructionist Temple Beth Hatfiloh. “On the other hand, I’m also troubled by the process in the sense that it really wasn’t an open process and that the membership was not brought into that conversation.”

Goldstein, whose family has held co-op membership for about eight years, said there has been a lot of talk within Olympia’s small Jewish community about a response.

“People feel a real desire to address this issue,” Goldstein said. But, he added, “There obviously is a diversity of opinion.”

Goldstein’s wife, Yohanna Kinberg, associate rabbi at Bellevue’s Temple B’nai Torah, said the family plans to drop its membership following a public discussion about the boycott.

The resolution was promoted over the course of two board meetings by members of an organization called Olympia BDS, which, according to its Web site, “is a grassroots network of community members in Olympia, WA, joining the call by Palestinian civil society for a non-violent, global movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel, until it meets the requirements of human rights and international law.”

“We’re not asking the co-op to institute a boycott on their own,” said Andrew Meyer, an organizer with Olympia BDS, referring to the movement that has been growing since the early part of the last decade. “We’re asking them to support a boycott that already exists.”

Co-op officials did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, but board member Harry Levine told The Olympian newspaper that nine of the 10 board members voted in favor of the boycott. Levine, who is Jewish, did not take a stand on the issue, but told The Olympian he supports the boycott.
A statement posted on the co-op’s Web site regarding the boycott stated it would also “refrain from dealing with non-Israeli companies that sell products or services to Israel that are used to violate the human rights of the Palestinians.”

One product made in Israel, Peace Oil, is an olive oil made in a joint venture between Israelis and Palestinians. It will remain on the shelves.

This is not the first attempt in Washington State that pro-boycott groups have made to remove Israeli products from food cooperative shelves. Earlier this year, the Central Co-op, which runs the Madison Market in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, killed a proposal on its product issues committee. After several contentious open meetings and a barrage of phone calls, the committee leadership decided that further consideration would damage the co-op and had become “a malignancy to our business,” according to former committee member Rick Bannerman.

Rob Jacobs, director of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the StandWithUs Israel advocacy organization, was active in countering the arguments set forth by proponents of the Madison Market boycott. This one took him by surprise, however.

“What I understand at this point is that last week, without any public notice and without letting their membership know, they were deciding to do this,” Jacobs said.

Meyer, of Olympia BDS, said his organization’s members had done extensive outreach to staff members of the co-op, as well as to volunteers, however.

“They’re responsible for understanding what’s going on within the co-op and being able to communicate that to members,” Meyer said.

The last two board meetings filled the room, Meyer said, and “no less than 75 percent of the meeting were members of the co-op.”

In expressing concern about the way the boycott was handled, both Rabbi Goldstein and Jacobs noted the founding principles of the co-op movement and its commitment to a democratic process. Both believed that process was subverted in this case.

With the vote having passed, the co-op board has since announced a meeting on Aug. 11 at The Olympia Center. Meyer said his group would also be hosting an event on August 4, as well as having an ongoing presence at the two store locations with information about the boycott.

“The process of engaging the community and making sure the people will have the opportunity to voice their opinions is ongoing, and that won’t be coming to an end anytime soon,” he said.
That’s a sentiment that likely won’t comfort people opposed to the boycott. Jacobs said he had contacted the Israeli consulate in San Francisco to see if they could send speakers, but didn’t have much optimism that any representatives would be able to set forth counterarguments.

There’s “no need to hear from anybody that supports Israel because they already know all the information and they don’t need to hear anybody from the bad guys’ side telling them something that they won’t believe anyway,” Jacobs said.

Organizers also cited Rachel Corrie, an Olympia woman killed in Gaza in 2003 while protesting Israel Defense Forces polices, as an inspiration for the boycott.

And while some of the co-op’s leadership takes pride in being the first market to boycott Israeli products, they’re not the first in Olympia to take action against what they call Israel’s oppressive policies. In June, students at The Evergreen State College voted overwhelmingly to divest from companies “that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine” as well as to ban construction equipment manufactured by Caterpillar, which sells its products to the Israeli government, from campus.

The board of The Port Townsend Food Co-op has posted its plans to discuss the issue of a boycott on Sept. 7.

http://www.jtnews.net/index.php?/news/item/7670/C22/

Olympia Food Co-op boycotts Israeli goods

By PAUL HAIST
article created on: 2010-08-01T00:00:00
A decision by the board of a food co-op in Olympia, Wash., to boycott all Israeli products has sparked a heated public debate and led to steps by regional Jewish leaders to reverse the decision and educate the public. In a 9-1 vote, the board of directors of the Olympia Food Co-op, which operates two grocery stores in Olympia, voted on July 15 to remove all Israeli products from their shelves.

In a news release announcing their decision the OFC said, “…the Board of Directors of the Olympia Food Co-op (www.olympiafood.coop) decided to boycott Israeli-made products and divest from investments in Israeli companies. The decision to boycott was made based on the co-op’s mission statement in accordance with our bylaws, and based on information from respected international sources.”

The announcement listed the United Nations, the Red Cross and Amnesty International as the sources of its information. It asked that Israel “end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantles the (security) wall, (that) Israel recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality” and that “Israel respects, protects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

Responding to initial reports of the OFC board action, Robert Horenstein, staff director of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland sent an email to the OFC on July 22 requesting that they repeal what he termed their “shortsighted decision.”
Horenstein told the OFC board their decision was “offensive and counter-productive” and that the process that led to their decision apparently “excluded anyone who might have brought forward a pro-Israel perspective.”

“One wonders why a co-op, or any other business, would single out Israel, a vibrant democracy, for punitive action,” wrote Horenstein. He asked if they were calling for boycotts also of “Turkey, which has killed countless Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq. Are you refusing to import products from any number of Arab countries that are notorious human rights abusers?” The co-op pointed out in its announcement that it does boycott products from China. Horenstein offered the CRC as an informational resource for the co-op.

Among Israeli products reportedly removed from the stores’ shelves are gluten-free crackers, ice cream cones and a moisturizing cream. It was not clear what, if any, investments the co-op has in Israel.
About 20 co-op members demonstrated in front of one of the stores after the decision became known, according to Rob Jacobs, the Northwest regional director of Stand With Us, an international pro-Israel education organization. Jacobs is based in Seattle.

Jacobs said co-op staff initially wanted to call the police to have the demonstrators arrested. Board members reportedly intervened to prevent that. Jacobs told Horenstein that his group, in partnership with others, planned to begin seeking petition signatures in front of both co-op outlets in an effort to get the board to reconsider its decision. Three hundred signatures are needed.

Rabbi Seth Goldstein of Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia wrote about the boycott in his “Weekly Words” column for his congregation. He said, among much else,” I feel that the language of the boycott goals are too extreme, and point to the denial of Israel’s right to exist.” He cited the first of the co-op’s three conditions for canceling it boycott, that Israel “end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” He said that what constitutes “Arab lands” is subject to various interpretations and that some opponents of Israel might argue that all of Israel is Arab land.

Goldstein also found fault with the process by which the boycott decision was made. “I felt the board of the co-op did not recognize that this issue rose to the level of needing membership input. In that, the decision was undemocratic.” Goldstein’s full remarks are available online at bethhatfiloh.org/notesfromthe­rabbi.htm Goldstein and his wife, Yohanna Kinberg, the associate rabbi of Temple Bnai Torah in Bellevue, Wash., are members of the co-op. Goldstein told The Olympian newspaper that he and his wife will no longer shop at the co-op because of the boycott decision.
Kinberg, the daughter of the late Rabbi Myron Kinberg formerly of Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, said that they will retain their membership in the co-op so that they can have a voice within the organization.

Kinberg said she protested the board’s boycott decision with a lone vigil outside one store on July 21. After posting news of the boycott vote on Facebook, she was joined the next two days by larger groups numbering about 20. She said that demonstrations against the boycott have continued daily since then.
Jacobs said that Rabbi Cheski Edelman of Chabad of Olympia, the leadership of Olympia’s Congregation B’nai Torah, the Seattle office the American Jewish Committee and Consul Akiva Tor and his staff of Israel’s San Francisco-based consulate for the Pacific Northwest region are also all aware of and involved in addressing the Olympia boycott issue.

Kinberg said, “The focus of the organizing effort right now is to focus on the bad process of the co-op board and not make this a referendum on Israel. The pro boycott people are not people you can argue with.”

The co-op board will meet again on Aug. 11, when opponents of their recent vote hope to present a petition signed by at least 300 co-op members—the required minimum—asking that the board reconsider its action.

Kinberg said boycott proponents include individuals associated with the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. “We’ve identified several as paid BDF organizers,” she said. Jacobs told Horenstein, “Given that (Israel) boycott resolutions now have been introduced at the Port Townsend, Bellingham (and) Yakima coops, it is essential that we reverse this undemocratically and intentionally hidden discussion and vote.”

http://www.jewishreview.org/local/Olympia-Food+Co-op-boycotts-Israeli-goods+