PORT TOWNSEND — A proposed boycott of Israeli goods by the Port Townsend Food Co-op that was defeated by its board on Tuesday night should not have been addressed in that format, its board chairman said, while others were pleased with the outcome or vowed to keep fighting.
“In hindsight, I think it may have been a mistake to go as far as we did,” Sam Gibboney said the day after the vote.
“The proposal itself did not fit within our boycott policy.”
The six-member co-op board voted 4-2 against the proposal after hearing from more than 50 people at a Port Townsend meeting attended by 175 people.
A small group of co-op members submitted the proposal in July to remove a total of 10 Israeli-made products from co-op shelves “until Israel stops violating international law and the rights of the Palestinian people.”
That proposal led to a Port Townsend debate of Middle East policy, with dueling presentations on Sunday by activist Kit Kittredge of Quilcene, one of the leaders of the boycott, and Israeli Deputy Consul General Gideon Lustig, who came from San Francisco to speak against it.
In a statement e-mailed to the Peninsula Daily News on Wednesday, Lustig said:
“We are pleased the Port Townsend Food Co-op rejected the resolution to boycott Israeli products.
“The co-op joins a number of other prominent organizations in resisting the efforts of boycott, divestment, and sanctions proponents whose campaigns harm efforts for peace, demonize Israel and de-legitimize Israel’s right to exist.”
That a boycott of goods from a country rather than a corporation would be outside of the co-op’s written policy was the substance of Tuesday’s successful motion rejecting the boycott proposal.
During the comment period, several co-op members said that addressing international issues was outside the board’s job description.
The Port Townsend proposal followed July action by the Olympia Food Co-op to boycott Israeli goods.
After receiving the boycott proposal in July, the Port Townsend Food Co-op board had voted to send the matter to the product selection committee for review, a move that Gibboney said Wednesday was a mistake.
Gibboney voted against sending the matter to the committee, while board member Rick Sepler abstained. Board members Dan Goldstein, Steve Moore, Janet Welch and Dorn Campbell voted in favor of that action.
On Tuesday night, Sepler made the motion to reject the boycott proposal because it did not mesh with co-op policy. He, Gibboney, Welch and Moore voted in favor of that motion, while Campbell and Goldstein opposed it.
During discussion, Goldstein provided an alternate motion, to reject the boycott because it lacked member support, but no board member seconded it.
Goldstein did not favor Sepler’s motion “because it seemed like it was trying to avoid the issue,” he said.
On Wednesday, Goldstein said, “I would have liked to see the board vote on the proposal as it was presented.”
Goldstein’s wife, Liz Rivera Goldstein, was one of the boycott proposal’s advocates, but Goldstein had remained neutral during the debate.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Welch favored an amendment stating co-op support for Middle East peace.
The board tried several versions of such an amendment, but could not agree on the wording.
So it voted on the original motion with no amendment.
Debbie Bakin of Port Townsend, one of the co-op members who invited Lustig to Port Townsend, said she opposed the boycott because it would punish Israeli farmers and not the government.
Kittredge, who has made five trips to the Gaza Strip and is planning a sixth, took issue with the idea that the boycott was anti-Semitic.
“I challenge those who say the boycott is anti-Semitic to see what I have seen,” she said.
After the vote, Kittredge said that she would continue to raise the issues that motivated the boycott proposal.
“We’ll march on,” she said.
“I thought Port Townsend would embrace an effort for human rights, but their refusal to support this shows that talk is cheap,” she said.
Kittredge said her group submitted a petition with 350 names in support of the boycott, which was not acknowledged by the board.
“There will be no victors here unless we leave tonight holding hands,” said
Leah Hammer, who opposed the boycott, said Wednesday that she was happy about the outcome but that it was “more contentious” than she would have liked.
“I think we need to continue this discussion.” she said.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
