RUTHFULLY YOURS

This is a busy month for BDS-ers and the Palestinians on whose behalf they claim to be bashing the Jewish state.

On March 24, J Street is having a three-day conference in Washington to compete with, and counteract, the massively attended AIPAC gathering there three weeks earlier.

On March 30, the Iranian-backed “Global March to Jerusalem” is taking place, with convoys from Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority making their way to Israel’s borders, and protesters in other Arab and European countries gathering outside of Israeli embassies with fists and placards raised. It is a lovely way to memorialize the slaughtered Jews, among them three young children, gunned down by an Islamist terrorist this week in Toulouse.

Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn – the ultra-yuppie section of Park Slope, where the affluent young (mostly Jewish) stockbrokers, lawyers, doctors, and a smattering of “artists” whose parents pay their rent – there is about to be a big meeting (this coming Tuesday night, March 27) to decide whether to hold a referendum. The referendum is on whether to boycott Israeli products at the neighborhood’s food co-op.

Normally, the Park Slope Co-op holds its monthly meetings at a neighborhood synagogue. But due to the large number of anticipated participants at this particular parlay, the venue has been moved to a school auditorium.

The Park Slope Co-op is a hippy-dippy creation for lovers of organic produce, composting, Zen music, and whole-grain cookery. Oh, yes, and for kosher-keepers, as well. To become a member, one has to pay an entrance fee and volunteer one’s services two to three hours per month. Only members are allowed to shop there. What they get in exchange is great food and other products at a far lower cost than is charged at regular supermarkets.

But something began eating at a bunch of members who had been sacrificing valuable iPad and yoga time to stack shelves and ring up purchases: A fair number of the items on sale at the Food Co-op are – gasp! – manufactured “beyond the Green Line.”

Not known for inertia where left-wing causes are concerned, this group gave itself a grandiose title – “Park Slope Food Co-op Members for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” – and set out to live up to its name.

Luckily, not all members of the co-op are in agreement with this travesty. One woman who got her back up created a counter-group, called “More Hummus, Please.”

The two factions, both of which have websites and large email lists, are now engaged in an ideological battle over the soul of the upscale kibbutz-like grocery store.

The BDS faction is busy boasting of its “humanitarianism” toward the Palestinians by attacking the “Israeli Occupation.” It does not make mention of the fact that every territory from which Israel has withdrawn has become a terror base funded by the regime in Tehran. But BDS-ers are not known to be too troubled by facts and figures, other than those put out by the PA propaganda machine and The New York Times.

The anti-BDS faction is not doing much better, though its heart is in the right place. Instead of simply encouraging all members to boycott the food co-op itself for engaging in a struggle based on equal measures of ignorance and ideology, this group has gone on the defensive by trying to explain why the boycott is unfair.

A prime example of its apologetic posture can be seen in its description of the SodaStream carbonator machine, whose main factory is in Mishor Adumim.

“In the event that this area will be transferred to the new state of Palestine,” reads the plea to members to vote “no” to the BDS referendum, “it will be for the new authority to decide if they want to keep this plant, which employs hundreds of Palestinians … If asked, SodaStream will close this plant … Those who wish to shut down the Mishor Adumim plant do not have the Palestinian workers’ best interests at heart.”

With supporters of Israel like these — who basically accept the claims of the BDS-ers about the questionable legality of Israeli sovereignty beyond the 1967 borders, and who worry about the best interests of the Palestinians over their own — how can the pernicious delegitimization campaign be combated?

The Jews of Park Slope are living very near to where their great-grandparents settled after getting off the boat at Ellis Island. However poor and dirty Brooklyn was in those days, it constituted freedom from an actual evil occupation – that of the Nazis. And however gentrified much of the New York City borough has become, many of its Jewish residents still care enough about the quality and price of their kosher food to join a food cooperative.

With a threat as great as Hitler’s annihilation machine looming large today, they should be ashamed of themselves for tolerating any assistance whatsoever to its enablers. In so doing, they are dishonoring their heritage and endangering their future.

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of a book on the radicalization of the Middle East, to be released by RVP Press in the spring.