After years of failed attempts by activists to prohibit Israeli-linked products like hummus and matzo from its shelves, a Brooklyn food co-op passed an anti-Israel boycott resolution this week. But legal challenges to the measure are already in the works.
During a “chaotic” meeting on Tuesday, 67% of members of the Park Slope Food Co-op voted in favor of a boycott of Israeli foods, the New York Post reported. Normally, a 75% supermajority is needed to pass boycotts within the organization, but members lowered the threshold on Tuesday night. More than 7,000 members attended the meeting.
A previous effort failed in 2012, after pushback from leading figures including then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to the New York Times.
Attendees said pro-Israel voices were effectively shut out during the Zoom proceedings, while supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement appeared to receive preferential treatment throughout the process.
The NY Post reported:
Almost immediately, many Jewish members expressed outrage at a motion earlier in the meeting — which passed — to move straight to voting on the boycott without allowing any anti-boycott proponents to speak up.
“The motion was proposed after only the pro BDS group spoke,” one attendee, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Post. “It’s horrible.”
“This is the first time in 15 years an item has been voted on without discussion,” a disgusted attendee at the meet noted.
“I definitely see a lawsuit coming,” another told The Post. “Especially if you change voting rules the same night a vote is set to occur.”
Indeed, a challenge has already been filed to overturn the vote.
Professor Jeffrey Lax and his organization, Students, Alumni, Faculty for Equality, filed a formal complaint with the state.
“This Israel-only discrimination on national origin clearly and blatantly violates NY Exec Law §296(13),” the City University of New York professor wrote on X. “Both I and S.A.F.E. Campus condemn this bigotry, racism, and antisemitism, and we have today filed a discrimination complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.”
That law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.
Lax noted that the co-op did not vote to boycott countries with established human rights abuses, including Turkey and China.
https://x.com/CUNY_Prof/status/2059700502410269080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Likewise, the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law said it is “actively evaluating all available legal claims arising from the discriminatory nature of this boycott and the procedural irregularities that allowed it to pass.”
The BDS movement “metastasizes into open hostility toward Jewish people everywhere, even those with no connection to Israel,” CEO Kenneth Marcus stated in a news release.
“This is the kind of hostility the Co-op’s own leadership has acknowledged was already happening within its walls,” Marcus said. “A grocery store should never become a springboard for extremist political campaigns.”
[Featured images from PSFC4Palestine Instagram]
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