1. Boycott is a tactic, not a principle.
This concept was most eloquently detailed by Nelson Mandela. A boycott is initiated to create change. It is not a tool of rejection, retribution, punishment, or disgust. When workers go on strike, it is not because they hate their employers and want to kill them; it is because they seek improvement in their working conditions. A boycott works the same way.
When an individual refuses to purchase a product due to ethical considerations, that is a principled stand. The stand by itself does not create change. However, when a call for boycott is instituted and a movement begins that refuses to participate in the consumption of an item, then it becomes a tactic for creating change, with consumer power as its weapon.
2. Boycotting Israel does not preclude doing anything about anything else anywhere.
Boycotting Israel does not mean one cannot engage in any other activism, nor does it imply that boycotting is the only viable tactic in the world. There are many causes in the world and many ways to address those causes. Boycotting Israel does not prevent anyone from engaging in other causes. Likewise, other important causes should not be exploited simply to prevent doing something about the Palestine/Israel conflict, in which we are complicit.
3. The BDS movement on Israel is international, it’s grassroots, it’s growing, and it’s working.
The movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) began in 2005, when over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations working both in Palestine and Israel issued an international call for participation in nonviolent action to compel Israel to abide by international law and end human rights abuses. The call has been picked up internationally. This new BDS movement has been endorsed and/or practiced by prominent figures such as Desmond Tutu, Arundhati Roy, Rigoberta Menchu, Shirin Ebadi, Eduardo Galeano, Alice Walker, Gil Scott-Heron, and Elvis Costello.
Additionally, it is endorsed by several organizations, including Code Pink, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Boycott from Within (Israel), Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Palestinian Queers for BDS, Central Única dos Trabalhadores, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and Fédération Syndicale Unitaire.
The Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott in particular has been publicly endorsed by Naomi Klein, Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin (Code Pink), Ann Wright, Richard Falk (UN Special Rapporteur), Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, nomy lamm, Anthony Arnove, Yonatan Shapira (Israeli Air Force captain and co-founder of Combatants for Peace), American Jews for a Just Peace, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and many more.
Israel is taking the growing BDS movement seriously. It has arrested Palestinian leaders who endorse BDS. The Knesset is now considering legislation that would make it illegal for Jewish Israeli activists to endorse BDS.
4. We were already taking sides before the Co-op boycott was instituted.
By stocking Israeli goods in the midst of an international call for boycott, and for the Co-op to continue to do so after a working member requested the honoring of the boycott two years ago, the Co-op was already taking sides. This is in addition to the US government being the primary enabler of Israel, giving Israel $3+ billion a year, which is equal to or more than the total amount of US aid given to all of sub-Saharan Africa. The US government also provides diplomatic cover and political support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
