Vote for the Coop. Vote NO to BDS.

In the current issue of Linewaiters' Gazette, (p.5) Joe Holtz, the Park Slope Food Coop's General Manager and one of its founders, appeals to the membership to reject the BDS referendum at the March 27 General Meeting.  Here are some excerpts (emphasis is mine), but of course you should read the whole thing.

This is a big blow to the BDS group at the Coop.  Joe really deserves our recognition and our thanks for endorsing opposition to the boycott.  Please leave him a note in my comments section.  Show him support.  (You don't have to register to comment.)

Voting “COOP” means voting NO on the proposed Israel/BDS referendum at the March General Meeting, regardless of your opinion on the extremely troubling situation in the Mideast.

Please attend the March 27 meeting at Brooklyn Tech High School and stand with me and others who have the third side of this issue in mind despite the idea held by many that this is a two-sided issue. We need to have passion for what the Coop has accomplished and passion to protect our survival as a thriving community of people from widely diverse backgrounds coming here to work together.

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Please don’t be convinced by arguments that referendums are a higher form of democracy. Our open and transparent meeting process, the Coop’s form of democracy, is central to the sustainability of our precious Coop. By voting against the referendum we can make it clear that the Coop is not in favor of seriously supporting an issue on which we are very divided. But if we approve holding a referendum we will be sending a message to the membership and the world that we want to be involved in divisive issues. We know joining BDS is divisive and can only harm both the perception of the Coop and the future of the Coop. We don’t need a referendum to figure that out.

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As one of the founders of our Coop, I can tell you that the group of our founders did not have uniformity around politics. But we had uniformity in our belief that there was too little cooperation in the world. We were determined to start this Coop because we believed in the beauty and the power of people working together for the collective good.
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The Coop in its usual operative mode does not take a position. We do not measure members on their adherence to any political position. There is no litmus test here for members other than whether the member is cooperating by fulfilling her membership responsibilities. We are open and welcoming to all who practice cooperation. Anyone who thinks we can start being unwelcoming to those of our members who hold fairly widely held views and still maintain sustainability as an organization is sadly mistaken. In the last years it has become clear from reading our Gazette that the March 27 proposal, if passed, will leave a large portion of members feeling unwelcomed and alienated from what has been their Coop.

Through all these years I have never for a moment thought that a vast swath of the members should be made to feel that being an owner of the Coop was a challenge to their sense of well being or justice or fairness because of a political position the Coop has taken.

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...the Coop has never really taken a position on any boycott that was at all controversial. ... We have held our Coop community together by only taking positions on boycotts that had overwhelmingly wide support. This current proposal to join BDS does not have similar Coopwide support.  Please recognize this and act to protect the Coop by voting NO, regardless of your opinion on the troubling situation in the Middle East.