"Letter to the Co-op (Manchester)" -- Pulse Media

Tweet After getting a refusal from his co-op board to a request to boycott Israeli goods, co-op member sends letter of response (to see exchange in full, http://pulsemedia.org/2010/11/09/letter-to-the-co-op/):

Thank you very much for your response. I must say it was rather disappointing, coming from the Co-operative with its history of supporting struggles for justice.

If you cast your mind back twenty years you will remember the ultimately successful boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa. I believe the Co-op supported the boycott tactic in that instance. At the time Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan argued against boycott for precisely the reasons you use – the adverse effect on people not directly involved, and on the victims themselves. This was a patronising line to say the least, as black South Africans themselves had asked for the boycott. Today, a huge coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations have called for a boycott of Israel, and they are joined by a few Israeli Jews who can see that a continuation of the status quo will result in an epic disaster for all concerned, Jews, Westerners, and Arabs.

Perhaps you think my comparison with apartheid South Africa is far fetched. Archbishop Desmond Tutu says the situation in Palestine-Israel is “worse” than South African apartheid. Nelson Mandela says “our freedom will not be complete until the Palestinians are free.” I have been to the West Bank recently, and I can confirm that a system of pass laws in in place to rival and even exceed apartheid South Africa. Very many Palestinians (in Israel proper – where Palestinians can be citizens but not nationals of the state – as well as in the territories occupied in 1967) live in deliberately-designed poverty. In besieged Gaza, very many Palestinians suffer malnutrition. Palestinian workers are not so much dependent on the Israeli economy as trapped by its continued viability. While we worry about the adverse effects of boycotts, many Palestinians are living their sixty-second year in refugee camps, and watch as the last slivers of their land are stolen. Beyond the domestic situation, Israel is an undeclared nuclear power which illegally occupies Lebanese and Syrian territory and is in contravention of tens of UN resolutions.

Like white South Africa, Jewish Israel considers itself to be part of the West. Its army and political positions are supported by the United States, and its economy is dependent on European trade. It is therefore very vulnerable to a Western boycott. Indeed, a Western boycott now seems to be the only peaceful way to attain some degree of justice and peace in Israel-Palestine. Bringing Israel into line would also dramatically defuse tensions between the West and an Islamic world enraged by Western double standards. I am very disappointed that the Co-op fails to see this. The Co-op is failing itself.

I won’t boycott the Co-op, because there is not yet any other High Street supermarket which has the imagination, values and courage to boycott Israel. I will of course boycott Israeli goods in the Co-op, and I’ll do my best to use small groceries instead of supermarkets.

Thanks again for your response. I do hope you will pass my comments upwards, and to the Co-op ethics committee, if there is such a thing.

Very best wishes

Write to:

The Co-operative Group
Customer Relations
Freepost MR9473
Manchester
M4 8BA