By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
Much to the relief of Seattle’s pro-Israel community, Central Co-op’s Madison Market will not be enacting a boycott of Israeli products.
Members of the Central Co-op’s Purchasing Issues Committee dismissed the proposed boycott through lack of action at their May 25 meeting. After eight months of discussion in the PIC, the Central Co-op’s board of trustees had insisted that the committee vote on the boycott at the Tuesday night meeting, or the issue would be dropped entirely. PIC members chose not to hold a vote on the boycott, thereby bringing the matter to a close.
“I was frankly thrilled for the community and for Madison Market that they were able to wrap up this issue and to not boycott Israel,” said Rob Jacobs, director for Israel advocacy organization StandWithUs Northwest, who worked to rally local opposition to the boycott.
Although allowing the boycott to simply slide off the store’s agenda through lack of consensus may seem flippant, the decision not to vote was a deliberate one on the part of the PIC. Through the course of a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, the committee agreed they would not be recommending a boycott to the board, but declined to take an official vote in an effort to avoid alienating community members on either side of the issue.
The motion to boycott Israeli products was first brought to the PIC in the October of 2009 by co-op owner Erin Wade, who is also a member of the Seattle chapter of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee.
As a cooperative venture, Madison Market encourages its shoppers to become owners by paying a membership fee. The owners, of which there are more than 10,000, are able to take part in the decision-making processes for what the store sells and how it operates by offering suggestions to various committees or joining a committee as voting members.
For the May 25 meeting, close to 40 people packed into the living room of the two-bedroom apartment above the market that Central Co-op uses as its office and community space. Concerned parties on both sides of the debate made impassioned one-minute pleas for or against the boycott during the meeting’s public comments period.
Following the public comments, Wade proposed a motion to the committee to ask the board of trustees for more time to reach a decision about the boycott, insisting not enough attention had been paid to the issue during the previous months’ meetings and that the PIC was not sufficiently informed to vote one way or the other.
The motion was voted down with several PIC committee members arguing that, if anything, far too much time had already been spent addressing the boycott proposal and that the issue was beginning to have a negative impact on the way the grocery store does business.
PIC member and outgoing trustee Rick Bannerman expressed his concern that taking a political stand on such a divisive international issue could be damaging to Madison Market. Trustees and staff received a deluge of calls and e-mails from concerned individuals who threatened to quit shopping at the market if the boycott was enacted.
“This issue has become a malignancy to our business,” Bannerman said. “It’s an albatross around our necks. And it needs to halt now.”
With the motion for a time extension struck down, Wade declined to pursue a vote on the boycott itself, insisting the board of trustees were forcing the PIC to act hastily due to outside pressure from pro-Israel supporters, specifically those affiliated with StandWithUs Northwest.
“I feel there was mob rule that happened,” Wade told JTNews following the meeting. “I think that the suffering of millions of Palestinians got lost in the shuffle here. People talked about their hurt feeling, but in a selfish way.”
Wade also accused the pro-Israel camp of “stacking” the committee. Jacobs and fellow Israel supporter Jane Deer-Hileman, both long-time Central Co-op owners, became members of the PIC in order to combat the boycott proposal. Wade herself joined the PIC in the fall — just a month after suggesting the boycott to the committee.
Jacobs acknowledged that he and Deer-Hileman joined the committee to influence a single issue, but Jacobs insisted he intends to stay on the PIC and continue to fulfill his duty as a voting member.
He said that he was pleased with the way the boycott issue was resolved.
“What they decided was that they are a market and their focus should be on making sure customers get the healthiest products, not taking a stand on international issues, and we support that,” Jacobs said.
He added that StandWithUs will be sponsoring a “buycott” of Madison Market, encouraging those on the mailing list to shop at the market and purchase Israeli products in particular as a show of appreciation to the Central Co-op. When this issue first became public, the store carried a total of five items produced in Israel.
Despite Jacobs’ enthusiasm for renewed harmony, a number of committee members expressed concerns that Madison Market’s relationship with Seattle’s pro-Israel community might be permanently strained.
“This takes the issue off all of our plates, but there’s still going to be tension,” said PIC member and Central Co-op trustee Matt Levinthal.
Levinthal added that while he appreciates the way the cooperative market model allows for people with all manner of opinions to have a say in how the store is run, in some cases, as with the boycott, those voices can become overwhelming for the community grocery store.
“We always want to err on the side of openness,” he said. “But sometimes that openness can come back and bite us in the ass.”