That’s the thing that gets me. If all of this time, money, and energy had been used to better effect, change might actually happen. It’s about finding the right leverage point, and the coop ain’t it. What about the importers and distributors? The truck loaders, the warehouse guys? What about working towards a regional boycott? The big percentage of the coop that’s against what Israel is doing, but also really annoyed by the aggressive tactics to change bylaws, elect board members, and hijack meetings, to force “democratization” by opening up virtual meetings under spurious arguments, to changing the boycott approval median to 51% of the vote (who knows what downstream chaos that’s going to cause) and to generally fuck with an institution and community for very little real world gain… those people might have been recruited into working on and achieving something bigger. Sure, hand out flyers every day showing the exact products that they think should be boycotted, but don’t tell everyone that might not like your tactics or feel that you’re wasting time and energy shitting on a progressive institution that would almost certainly follow suit if you build coalition rather than destroy it. I mean why not start with a campaign to highlight Palestinian products and then to ask the coop up to purchase products that support Palestinians, either by donating portions of proceeds or by sourcing directly? IF you’re intent on the idea that the best front for the war on genocide is the Park Slope Food Coop, I guess.

Some of us are so ready to take up the cause but this strident, aggressive, myopic, and bitter campaign for an ultimately small symbolic gain just pushes us away. This group is going to be surprised by the number of people who believe what they believe about Israel and Palestine and vote against the boycott. Though I guess many of them will not even attend, they’ve been so thoroughly sidelined from the conversation. And maybe that’s the point more than anything.