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See BooMan’s frontpage story – Israel’s Fight With BDS.

Many of the community BDS movements offer symbolic support for the Palestinians. I see it mainly as part of the freedom of expression as laid out in the US Constitution. Googling Brad Lander, he had plenty of critics from the Orthodox Jewish community running for his seat as Councilman. Apparently he views the BDS movement as a threat to deligitimize Israel as a state and not as a political statement to create a Palestinian state. Lander also opposed the BDS boycott of Israeli goods at the Park Slope Food Coop.

Interestingly, a similar boycott in Olympia Washington (hometown of activist Rachel Corrie) was approved and later affirmed in a lawsuit case before the County Superior Court. Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit against a food co-op, saying its decision to boycott products from Israel was protected free speech. Judge Thomas McPhee cited a 2010 law that limits lawsuits aimed at silencing activists, known as an Anti-SLAPP law. The lawsuit against the Olympia Food Coop was brought by StandWithUs and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Express your solidarity with students at Brooklyn College by signing their petition.

StandWithUs manufactures boycott of Jewish deli in Olympia

(Mondoweiss) – Kitzel’s Crazy Delicious Delicatessen is a new establishment that opened in downtown Olympia last December, serving Eastern European Jewish food. Kitzel’s was originally scheduled on March 15 to host an event with four LGBT and LGBT-ally Israelis, titled “Rainbow Generations.” However, the event, which was to be the second Kitzel’s event sponsored by the multimillion-dollar pro-Israel organization StandWithUs, was cancelled two days prior.

StandWithUs issued its own announcement, titled “Olympia Deli Needs Our Help!”:

    The anti-Israel boycott activists in Olympia have targeted Kitzel’s Delicatessen for boycott because they are willing to host pro-Israel speakers and they sell Israeli goods!

    […]
    Just this week, anti-Israel intolerance showed its ugly face in Olympia, Washington. For those who don’t know, Olympia, Washington, is a center of anti-Israel activity. It’s a place where college professors don’t speak openly of their support for Israel because they may lose researchand that the college divest its endowment from companies doing business with or in Israel.[sic]

    Kitzel’s Deli offered to work with StandWithUs to host speakers from Israel who were to talk about their lives, about their community, about the progressive nature of Israel.

    Because Kitzel offered to host these Israeli speakers, BDS supporters are attempting to bully the deli. They’ve threatened to protest, boycott and to cause economic damage to stop Israeli voices from being heard in Olympia. Already, Kitzel’s weekly sales have fallen 50 percent and they’ve had to lay off half their staff.

    The boycott activists in Olympia call themselves open-minded and liberal. But for people who claim to be liberal, to be open minded, their actions show them to be the most close minded, trying to silencing dialog and deny anyone with whom they disagree the right to speak. Apparently the only perspective that BDS activists will tolerate is their own perspective. Their actions are the most undemocratic – an unbridled, unapologetic attempt to deny Israelis and Israel’s supporters the right to speak and be heard.

    Don’t let them succeed! Help keep Kitzel’s Delicatessen open!

“Intimidation” by “co-op supporters”? “Bullying” and threats of “economic damage” against Kitzel’s? Skeptical of this story, I contacted several Olympia activists and asked them if they or anyone they knew was organizing a boycott campaign against Kitzel’s. All of them said no and expressed the same bewilderment I had upon hearing of this.

By March 16, however, the JTNews article had changed. Where previously the article had blamed “intimidation” against Kitzel’s on “supporters” of the Olympia Food Co-op, it now attributed the intimidation to no specific group, and a correction was noted:

    “Note: This article was corrected to remove a reference to who was intimidating Kitzel’s Delicatessen. Owner Hava Aviv tells JTNews that she believes it is individuals in Olympia who are unaffiliated with any specific group or organization. JTNews regrets the error.”

Site Trail: StandWithUs – IP address 67.199.116.67 in Phoenix AZ

My diary in 2005 – IDEALS — Rachel Corrie in London Play.