Action Alert: Support the Olympia Food Co-op Now! We Need Your Support Urgently!
Just last week the Board of Directors of the Olympia Food Co-op took thecourageous step of instituting a boycott of Israeli goods, the firstgrocery boycott of Israel in the US. Already, there is a movement afoot tocondemn the Co-op for taking this important stand. Board and staff arereceiving aggressive emails and phone calls, and we need to show them thatthere is local support for the boycott. Please, thank the Olympia FoodCo-op and its board of directors for supporting human rights in Palestine:
Send brief emails of thanks to board@olympiafood.coop, with a copy tocontact@olympiabds.org.Show your support for this boycott by signing our petition(http://www.olympiabds.org/get-involved/petition-in-support-of-the-olympi...)!Write a letter to the editor or op-ed to our local newspaper, The Olympian(http://www.theolympian.com/opinion/index.html#lteanchor), and send us acopy at contact@olympiabds.org.Donate money to support the campaign(https://www.donationpay.org/olympiabds/).Visit us at www.olympiabds.org to learn more.
Olympia BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is a grassroots network ofcommunity members in Olympia, WA, joining the call by Palestinian civilsociety for a non-violent, global movement of boycott, divestment, andsanctions of Israel, until it meets the requirements of human rights andinternational law.
Thanks for listening!
Olympia BDSwww.olympiabds.orgcontact@olympiabds.org
-------------------------------------------The press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Olympia, WA– The Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors has decided toboycott Israeli goods at their two locations in Olympia, Washington. At aJuly 15th meeting packed with Co-op members, the Board reached thisconsensus. The Co-op becomes the first US grocery store to publicly jointhe international grassroots movement for boycott, divestment, andsanctions (BDS) on Israel for its human rights abuses.
Co-op board member Rob Richards explained, “My hope is that by being thefirst in the US to adopt the boycott we act as a catalyst for other co-opsto join in. Each additional organizational entity that joins may have avery small effect on the big picture, but drop by drop fills the tub.”
Noah Sochet, a Co-op member and OlympiaBDS organizer adds, “As a UScitizen and as a Jew, I’m proud to say that my Co-op no longerunderwrites the suffering in Palestine.”
In accordance with its mission statement, the Olympia Food Co-op has alongstanding boycott policy, which includes a boycott of China (for itsoccupation of Tibet) and a previous boycott of Colorado (for legalizingdiscrimination against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in 1992). The Co-opalso has policies for rejecting items whose packaging feature exploitive oroppressive imagery.
One Israeli product is exempt from the boycott: “Peace Oil,” a brand ofolive oil fairly traded from Palestinian farmers in the West Bank and theGalilee, will continue to be carried by the Co-op.
The boycott follows on the heels of a similarly historic event at thenearby Evergreen State College. On June 2, students at the Olympia-basedcollege voted overwhelmingly to approve two resolutions calling on thecollege’s foundation to divest from companies profiting from the Israelioccupation of Palestine, as well as calling on the college to ban the useof Caterpillar equipment due to Caterpillar’s complicity in Israeli warcrimes. The college is the alma mater of Rachel Corrie, who was killed by aweaponized Caterpillar bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003.
News of the boycott has drawn praise from around the world, including inIsrael. “I salute the great work of the people in Olympia,” saidYonatan Shapira, an Israeli Air Force captain and co-founder of Combatantsfor Peace. “The decision taken by the Olympia Food Co-op is an importantstep toward just peace for all people living in Israel/Palestine. It isalso a step toward accountability for Israel’s murder of RachelCorrie.”
The BDS movement began in 2005 when over 170 Palestinian civil societyorganizations in Israel and in Palestine issued a call for the nonviolenttactic of BDS on Israel until the country abides by international law andhuman rights standards. The BDS call has become an international movement,endorsed by renowned figures such as Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, and AliceWalker. The Co-op boycott comes two months after Italy’s largestsupermarket chains, COOP and Nordiconad, declared a boycott of productsexported by Israeli Carmel Agrexco.
Israel has responded to the BDS movement by arresting prominent Palestinianendorsers. The Knesset is currently considering legislation to outlawendorsement of BDS by Israelis.
