Management is With Us

In today's New York Post, Rich Calder gives us the skinny on the BDS effort at the Park Slope Food Coop.  So here is something new, in print:

But even the notion of a referendum drew ire.

Ann Herpel, a general coordinator at the co-op, told The Post that she and the management team opposes the boycott plan and hopes it never reaches a referendum.

"We feel [a boycott] would be divisive," she said. "We want to be good stewards and make all people feel welcome."

If that weren't enough, I told the New York Observer, "they [the pro-BDS group] don’t seem to have a terribly sophisticated understanding of the situation."  Mr. Calder's report seems to confirm my evaluation:

The Post contacted the leaders of the anti-Israel co-op members for comment but only got questions, not answers.

A person identified as "Hima" said in an e-mail that before commenting, the group wants to know the reporter’s story "angle" and sought copies of his recent published articles "to give us a sense of" writing style.

"You Don't Know What Apartheid Is"

Sometimes, in the course of politics, we lose site of the real people who have suffered, whose lives have been irrevocably affected by violence.  Whether it is South Africans, Israelis or Palestinians, their experiences should never be exaggerated, exploited nor trivialized.  It is this type of dehumanization that stands in the way of creating the contacts between people that can bring about true peace.

At the New York Observer article  about the BDS initiative at the Park Slope Food Coop, the first comment is from one of the pro-BDS organizers at the Coop.  He uses the word "apartheid" four times in his response.  This prompted a reply from a Black South African, identifying himself as Baruti, "you don't know what Apartheid is."  I have written previously about the fallacy of the apartheid analogy, here, here and here.  But everything I have written pales compared to Baruti's words.

I am ashamed to admit at first I took delight in Baruti's strong rebuke.  I realized I was being insensitive to his suffering.  It is precisely these testimonies that give us perspective.

Mr. Baruti, I wish for you joy and success that will outweigh your tribulations one thousand fold, that you should go from strength to strength.  Thank you for speaking out.

With deep respect for Baruti, and to honor the memory of his fallen friends, I reprint his response in its entirety.

I'm from South Africa.  An African South African, not a colonialist.  (Americans just call me black.)  I experienced Apartheid.  Separateness.  It was ugly.  Many of my friends died.

I've been to Israel.  The West Bank.  Gaza.  Inside of Israel.  Lived there for a year touring for a book I want to write.

Mr. Mazza, you don't know what Apartheid is.  For all of Israel's faults, you dishonor yourself and my fallen mates by using the word.  The UN does not use the phrase "Israeli Apartheid" and you repeating it over and over again does not give it authority.  There is really no comparison between Israel and South Africa.    We appreciate your help over there in the US for "saving" us back in the eighties, but we here in S.A. did the dirty work.  We suffered.  We went to jail.  We died.  You stayed safe, signed a few pieces of paper, spoke at a meeting or two maybe.  You follow the same route for your work on human rights in the Middle East.

Tutu is beloved here, but he is not our polestar.  He is as political as anyone and we all know it.  SA is still quite corrupt and dangerous and he is beholden to make statements reflecting those interests.  Sadly,
because atrocities were committed by both sides in our war for freedom, corruption and crime are what we have reaped, and freedom is still very hard to find today in SA.   You are, I'm sorry to say, very uninformed about what causes you take up.

Show him some love and click the "like" button on his comment.

Civic Society

Our fellow coop members promoting BDS tell us not fear conflict and division in the coop.  Divest This!, who has been following BDS 3 years, points out

the vehicle through which BDS tries to operate is civic society. Why go through such trouble to get this school or that church to sign onto the boycott or divestment program, if not to try to speak in the name of every member of that organization? For only by making such claims can BDS campaigners give the impression that their desire to see Israel punished through economic sanction comes from a large and respected institution (rather than a small, unrepresentative minority).

The “By-Any-Means-Necessary” tactics used to recruit these organizations into the BDS fold demonstrates how little interest boycotters have in these civic institutions, beyond their usefulness.

Take the seemingly trivial example of food co-ops, many of which operate under relatively loose rules and by-laws. To most of us, such loose governance makes sense in the context of a community of trust (the definition of a civic institution). For in such a trust community, it is assumed that individuals will take the needs of the larger organization and its members into account before acting (and thus air-tight rules and regulations are not required for normal, ongoing activity). But for BDSers, such loose rules do not represent the trusting nature of our civic life, but rather weaknesses to exploit for their own narrow ends.

But at the end of the day, this civic life is what holds our society together, providing endless building blocks which add onto each other one food co-op, one 4H club, one small church, one tiny town, one school, one city, one institution at a time. And when you tear at the fabric that holds such institutions together in order to achieve your own selfish ends, the damage caused has repercussions

The emphasis is mine.  Our BDS group admits this is divisive, yet they pursue it.  The Park Slope Food Coop needs to protect itself.

Report from the "Discussion" at the General Meeting

For this to make any sense at all, I first have to describe how the Park Slope Food Coop is governed.  The Coop's monthly General Meeting (GM) has been the decision-making body of the Coop since the Coop began in 1973.  When the Coop was incorporated in 1977, it became legally required to have a Board of Directors. However, the Board's role doesn't overshadow or replace the member initiative, discussion and decision-making that is the purpose of the GM.

Decisions are made at the monthly GM.  All members may attend and vote.  Any member can submit an item to the Agenda Committee and it will eventually get calendared for the GM.  And so it proceeded for the group of members who requested a "Discussion about Conducting a Membership-wide referendum on the participation of the PSFC in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid policies."

A Park Slope Food Coop GM "discussion" consists of 3 parts.  First, the submitting party presents the agenda item.  Second, members may ask clarifying questions to the submitting party about the item.  Finally, there is a period for comment, where members are called up one at a time for 2-3 minutes to state their opinions on the measure at hand.  No vote is taken.

If you were hoping for logical presentations of well reasoned arguments and proofs by opposing sides,  you would be disappointed. 

The "discussion" was conducted as described above, with one exception. A statement by Rabbi Bachman opposing the boycott was read prior to opening the floor to comments.  Rabbi Bachman is the senior rabbi at the nearby synagogue where the Coop holds the GM.    In all, 25 members treated us to their sound bites.  14 spoke out in opposition to BDS, 9 were in favor, and 2 made neutral comments.  Time ran out, and we voted to adjourn.

I was surprised by the lack of substance in the BDS presentation.  They spent most of their time talking about how a referendum was more democratic than a General Meeting.  They did not identify the goals of the BDS movement.  They did not provide a single specific example of Israel's horrible behaviors, other than the vague terms "violations of human rights and international law" and "apartheid."  Could it be that they can't substantiate these claims? And why hide the nature of BDS?

Maybe you can find an answer in the video at the top left.

How BDS Hurts Food Coops - Pt. 1

This video has interviews with members of the Port Townsend Food Co-op and the Olympia Food Co-op.  In Port Townsend, the BDS attempt failed.  In Olympia, it succeeded by subverting the democratic process.  I will write more about Olympia soon, or you can read all the posts at Divest This!

In the meantime, you can listen to these long time co-op members and board member tell the story of how BDS tore their community apart.

Neutral Spaces

Our Coop is a food store. Our work requirement is the key element that allows the coop to provides our low prices.   There is a bonus; we get to work and interact, even form friendships, with diverse  groups of people, many of whom we would never meet otherwise.

Life provides many opportunities for interaction within our own particular communities, be they political, religious, ethnic, national, regional, etc. To build broader communities, we require neutral spaces where people with different politics, religion, sexual orientation, etc. can meet and interact with each other as people, without regard to the barriers that separate us in other settings. The coop is one of these neutral spaces.

When we interact in these neutral environments, we learn to recognize our common humanity, to dispel stereotypes about each other and to begin to respect those with whom we disagree or who are different from us.

Politicizing neutral institutions destroys this source of community and opportunity for interaction. If an organization like the Park Slope Food Coop were to adopt positions on divisive political issues, then it really would no longer be open to everyone. No one joins or continues to support an organization espousing political positions he or she abhors.

If the Coop considers adopting divisive political positions, its membership will fragment. This is what happens when previously open communal organizations take sides on political controversies on which their members strongly disagree.

Our Coop is worth protecting and preserving. Our members must resist attempts to use our Coop as a political weapon to be fought over and captured.



The above was adopted from a March 2010 essay by Alan Brownstein, professor of constitutional law at the UC Davis School of Law. The essay was written in response to the BDS effort at the Davis Food Cooperative. It was originally published in the Davis Enterprise, and re-posted on the Davis Interfaith Coalition for Peace and Justice in the Middle East web site. You can read the original here.

The Board of Directors of the Davis Food Cooperative ultimately rejected a member initiative to vote on joining BDS. It was determined the initiative did not have a "lawful and proper purpose" according to their by-laws.

About the UN

One of the BDS claims is "abundant condemnation of Israeli policies by the UN."

The UN has performed outstanding work in the areas of health, hunger and agriculture development.

It also has ignored conflicts, human rights abuses and humanitarian crises in places like China, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Congo, and Algeria, to name a few.


Jerusalem Institute for Justice put together this video explaining the politics of how this came to be that so much attention is place on Israel, and the unfree states of the world are ignored.