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Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Enters Third Year At Park Slope Food Co-Op
By
Garth Johnston
Published Aug 4, 2011
Modified Aug 4, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Aug 4, 2011
Modified Aug 4, 2011
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Remember waaaay back in February 2009 when the Park Slope interwebs got all upset about the thought that the Park Slope Food Co-op might ban Israeli products? The story is by no means dead, and today the Observer goes deep into the issue. “I think they’re latching onto it like slogans," one opponent of the ban told the pink paper. "Like true believers, it’s the cool thing to do. You know, ‘I’m a progressive, and it’s a progressive cause,’ so I think that’s how it’s coming through, very thoughtlessly.”
Part of the problem with the B.D.S. movement as it is called (as in "boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israeli products and companies") is that nobody really seems to know exactly how many Israeli products the Co-op carries. Some say it is just some bath salts (but not those bath salts) and "the occasional peppers or lychee," while others (they've got a website!) think there is more on the shelves. Either way, the issue has some members of the famous market murmuring about anti-Semitism. “We don’t have any shoppers here from South Africa or Nestlé. But this is different—this is Chaim town,” said one member. “This is the heart of Chaim town. So to come in here and try and push this boycott against Israel goes against everything the co-op is about, everything it was founded on.”
And it keeps going. Alan Dershowitz is ready to go to war if the Co-op goes through with a ban. “It reminds me of what one great historian once said about the Puritans: they were opposed to bear-baiting not because of the harm it did to the bear but because of the pleasure it gave the viewers,” the Harvard law professor told the paper. “And that’s what these people are, they’re bigots. Many of them are anti-Semites. Some of them don’t know they’re anti-Semites. That doesn’t give them a pass...We will stop at nothing to make them pay an extraordinarily heavy price for their bigotry.”
Anyway, the issue won't be going away anytime soon. If the topic of B.D.S. does get put to a referendum, it'll be another six months or so before a vote could take place. And if one were to come, it isn't like the Co-op really has that much to worry about: “Would I leave the co-op?” an anti-B.D.S. organizer said to the paper. “Did I leave the country when a certain president spent eight years in office?”
Tagged
BDS
brooklyn
isreal
park slope
Park Slope Co-op
Park Slope Food Co-op
Garth Johnston
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