By Allison Arthur and Jaya Spier, other
Port Townsend’s Food Co-op decided 4-2 to stay out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by not boycotting Israeli products.
Had the board chosen Sept. 21 — on a day noted as the International Day of Peace — to boycott Israeli-made products such as Peace Oil olive oil, it would have been the second co-op in the nation to do so. The Olympia co-op voted in July for a boycott.
More than 50 co-op members — many who identified themselves as Jewish — turned out to say their piece at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Port Townsend.
After listening to two hours of often-emotional testimony, the co-op board spent an hour discussing the proposal, briefly tried to amend the motion to include a statement showing support for peace in the Middle East, then voted against the boycott.
“We are not in the business, fundamentally, of adjudicating international issues,” said board member Rick Sepler.
“That is not the business the co-op is in,” said board member Steve Moore, adding, “It is not why we were elected.”
President Sam Gibboney and board member Janet Welch joined Sepler and Moore in rejecting the boycott proposal while board members Dan Goldstein, whose wife Liz Rivera Goldstein supported the boycott, and Dorn Campbell voted in favor.
The debate divided the co-op and families, and was at times highly emotional.
Kasiana Friedman, 23, who opposed the boycott, said she joined the co-op when she was 13 years old. She tearfully told of how difficult it was for her in Jefferson County to practice her religion. She said she dated the only Jewish boy in high school.
Member Judy Komishane spoke against the boycott. She was followed by her brother, Robert, who spoke in favor of it.
Those opposed to the boycott argued the co-op was not the right place to tackle political issues and that it was hurtful to many Jewish members of Port Townsend’s community.
Opponents also argued that punishing innocent farmers who make their livelihood from the production and sale of the eight Israeli products the co-op carries wasn’t the right way to try and help Palestinians.
Proponents, especially those who took part in writing the proposal, spoke passionately for the boycott of Israeli products, questioning how Israel could justify its actions in the West Bank and Gaza, tearing down homes, ripping out olive trees and damaging wells.
“If the products are on our shelves and it’s available locally, then it becomes a local issue,” said Rivera Goldstein.
Kit Kittredge of Quilcene, who has been one of the outspoken supporters of a boycott, said the decision not to boycott Israeli products would not silence those who care about people suffering in Palestine.
“Our anguish here is just a fraction of what people in Gaza experience,” she said in a statement.
That sentiment was echoed by other boycott supporters.
“In 5, 10, or 15 years, when the full impact of what happens in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel becomes known to the world as earlier crimes, I want to be able to look my daughter in the eye and say we did everything we could to stop the killing,” said boycott supporter Dena Shunra in a prepared statement on what is known as the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. Many Jews see the movement as anti-Semitic.
The one synagogue in Port Townsend, Bet Shira, chose to stay out of the proceedings, citing diversity of opinion within its membership.
“Because we’re the only game in town, it didn’t feel appropriate to take a stand,” said board member Debbie Bakin.
But independently, Bakin felt the need to speak out because she was hearing statements “thrown out about Israel that were at best distortions, and I felt that nobody was presenting the other side,” she said.
She called on Rob Jacobs, executive director of the Israel advocacy organization StandWithUs, who provided information and advice, Bakin said. She joined with a group of others also concerned about the proposal to put together materials and host panels with speakers from Seattle-based pro-Israel organizations.
Presented with more information, Bakin said, “people could make decisions for themselves.”
Jacobs said the failed attempt at a boycott made a clear statement that the co-op board “very clearly didn’t see their role as arbiters of issues of foreign policy.”
The vote was important, he said, because it stopped any momentum that might have come from two small co-ops in the same region in such a short period.
“Passage would have given energy to those folks who seem set on portraying Israel as an apartheid genocidal state, and I think this demonstrates that when a community really looks at the issues and really thinks about it on both sides, the communities reject the boycott proposals,” Jacobs said.
Gideon Lustig, Israel’s deputy consul general for the Pacific Northwest who came to Port Townsend to urge the board to stay out of the highly charged political debate, agreed. “When you get people really taking part in the decision-making and getting the information, or making sure that they have enough tools to make the decision then you really see that BDS is being thrown out or not accepted,” Lustig said.
“That’s the significance, that this time the community made sure that they knew that they had the information.”
Following months of discussion both in and out of the co-op and in the pages of The Leader, many of those involved agreed that there had been healthy discourse on a difficult international issue and that the discussion likely would continue.
Board chair Gibboney said the boycott was related to an important human need, “the need to align our daily actions with our own personal moral compass, and that’s going to look different for everyone,” she said, “but it’s something that is not surprising to me in the membership of a co-op of people that join together because they have decided where their food comes from, that it matters.”
After the vote, Rivera Goldstein said she was glad the conversation was respectful, though she expressed disappointment with the outcome.
“I think the board took the easy way out, but we will continue to educate the community. I hope the co-op will at least label the products so the customers can make an informed decision,” she said.
Bakin said that though the vote is in the past, the issue won’t go away anytime soon.
“I feel like there’s still work to be done,” she said. “I feel that there’s some healing to be done.”
JTNews editor Joel Magalnick contributed to this story.