PSC and the Co-Op: boycotters to boycott the boycotters who boycotted the boycotters?

No the headline is not satire. In 2012 the Co-Op - under pressure from the anti-Israel PSC ("Palestine Solidarity Campaign") decided to impose an Israel boycott. Now its Bank has closed down the accounts of the PSC. The Israel boycotters (PSC) are claiming it is a conspiracy to stop criticism of Israel and will no doubt call for a boycott of the Co-Op (the Israel boycotters) who have now boycotted the PSC (UPDATE: just checked the PSC twitter account and indeed it is full of people saying they will now boycott the Co-Op). It is not quite on a scale of ISIS v Hezbollah, or even Alien v Predator, but it is nevertheless entertaining.

Below is my correspondence in 2012 following the  Co-Op's decision decision to boycott Israeli goods.


First to Co-Op Letter 25 June 2012

Dear Sir/Madam,

Withdrawal of funds (A/C XXXXXX) in protest at Co-Operative’s anti-Semitic anti-Israel policy

I would like you to know that I have today withdrawn all of the funds in this account as a small protest against the Co-op’s despicable anti-Semitic policy that specifically boycotts goods produced by Jewish communities in the disputed West Bank territories. Boycotting Jewish businesses is what the Nazis did in the 1930s. At least my action shows that boycotts can work two ways.

What is sad is that the Co-Op decision has been adopted due to pressure from the “Palestine Solidarity Campaign” – a group of anti-Semitic terrorist-supporting liars and con artists who actually have no interest whatsoever in the welfare of the ‘Palestinians’ but simply want to remove every Jew from the land of Israel. Shame on the Co-op for being hoodwinked by these thuggish goons. The Co-op really should do its homework and find out more about who the PSC really are and whether it really wants to be associated with them.

If you do reply to this letter, please do not bother insulting my intelligence by repeating the nonsensical statements already made about this ‘not being anti-Israel’ because it ‘only applies to goods from illegal West Bank settlements’. The PSC regards the whole of Israel as ‘illegal Jewish settlements’. If it is ‘human rights’ the Co-op is really interested in then there are many dozens of other countries it should be boycotting rather than Israel; one of these would be the Palestinian Authority which treats women on a par with cattle, creams off most of the billions of dollars of Western aid it receives every year into its officials’ Swiss bank accounts, and brainwashes its school children to ‘seek martyrdom’ by killing Jews.

Yours sincerely,

Edgar Davidson

Co-op response from Amanda Bailey (Customer Relations)  19 July 2012

Letter from the Co-Op

My response to Amanda Baily, 4 August 2012

Dear Ms Bailey,

Thank you for your letter of 19th July. I have a number of follow-up questions.

My first set of questions relate to your choice of criteria for boycotting countries. You assert that under your “Human Rights and Trade Policy” you withdraw all trade when there is a ‘broad international consensus a settlement is illegal’ and that ‘there are only two examples of such settlements: the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and the Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara”.  Before addressing the issue of the legality or otherwise of the Israeli settlements, I note from your website that the most serious humans rights abusers in the world, namely Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe are not on your boycott list. So my questions are:

1. ‘Occupation’  is the only criteria that you mention; what other criteria do you have as part of your “Human Rights and Trade Policy”?

2. Is denial of equal rights to women and/or minorities included in your criteria, and if not why not?

3. Is persecution of gays and lesbians included in your criteria, and if not why not?

4. Is the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents included in your criteria, and if not why not?

5. Is sponsoring and glorifying terrorism included in your criteria, and if not why not?

6. Is state sponsored anti-Semitism included in your criteria, and if not why not?

7. Assuming the answer to at least one of questions 1-6 is ‘yes’ then why are you not boycotting goods from every one of the 58 Muslim countries in the world?

8. Is “conducting illegal wars far from a country’s own borders” one of the criteria, and if so why is the Co-Op not boycotting goods from the USA,  France, Italy, Holland etc. In fact, how comes the Co-Op is not boycotting goods from the UK?

My next set of questions concerns the issue of ‘illegal settlements’ of which you say there are only two examples (one of which is the Israelis):

9. Are you aware that, even according to the United Nations (resolution 242), the West Bank does not belong to any national territory but rather is considered disputed territory whose borders are to be determined under a final status peace agreement?

10. Are you aware of the recent Levy Report that demolishes the false narrative of Israeli settlement and occupation by restating many of the obvious points of law; most significantly that Israel is not an occupying power and did not seize any land from another state. Indeed all of the land that Israel is accused of occupying in the West Bank is actually land that was seized from it by the invading Jordanian and other Arab armies during its 1948 War of Independence?

11. Are you aware that the only legal basis for denouncing the Jews who returned in 1967 to the homes that they had been expelled from in 1948 as “settlers” is by recognizing the Jordanian conquests of those territories. But those conquests were never recognized or accepted. Not even by the international community.

12. Assuming that your claim of a ‘broad international consensus’ is the 2004 International Court of Justice ruling (which Israel did not participate in and which has been demolished by the Levy report) are you aware that one of the  ICC ‘judges’ was  Al Khasawneh who had a blatant conflict of interest, since he was an advisor to the King of Jordan and later became the Prime Minister of Jordan?

13. Why does your notion of occupied territories fail to include the approximately 160 other territories around the world that are ‘disputed’ (each of which necessarily involves one country ‘occupying it’ against the wishes of some other country or national group)?

14. In particular why does your definition not include genuinely brutal occupations such as: the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, or even the Russian occupation of Abkhazia, especially as China, Russia and Turkey all of have infinitely worse human rights records than Israel? 

15. You are presumably aware that one of the disputed international territories is the Falklands Islands, which Argentina claims is illegally occupied by the UK. A significant majority of countries in the UN now agree with the Argentine position. So, as per question 8 above, why is the Co-Op not boycotting the UK?

16. Are you aware that any notion of an ‘international consensus’ is fundamentally irrelevant because the United Nations contains 58 Muslim states – all  human rights abusers as described above - who provide a built-in ‘consensus’ on any anti-Israel motion that anybody cares to think of? 

My next question concerns your assertion that the Co-Op “continue to seek increased trade with Palestinian businesses.” The corrupt Palestinian Authority is not only guilty of all of the human rights offences listed above, but is actually one of the world’s worst offenders. For anti-Semitism the PA truly are world-beaters with their indoctrination of children (becoming a suicide bomber to kill Jews is the highest ambition of most Palestinians children); in the Palestinian Authority selling land to a Jew (not an Israeli please note) is punishable by death and numerous Palestinian citizens have been killed for this ‘crime’. So:

17: How is the Co-Op’s “Human Rights and Trade Policy” consistent with seeking increased traded with such a brutal, corrupt regime?

And finally, three general questions:

18. Do you believe that Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East where all minorities have equal rights – is a worse human rights violator than Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China etc?

19. How is your policy to boycott goods produced by Jewish communities in the West Bank anything other than pure anti-Semitism?

20. How and why did the Co-Op get hoodwinked into a nonsensical hypocritical policy (that will ultimately be self-damaging) by a small group of congenital anti-Semites disguised as ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists.

Yours sincerely,

Edgar Davidson

Amanda Baily response , 4 September 2012

My response to Amanda Baily, 7 September 2012

Dear Ms Baily

The fact that you made no attempt to answer even one of my questions means it is safe to conclude that the only rational definition of what constitutes an abuse of the Co-Op's “Human Rights and Trade Policy” is that the country must be named "Israel". In particular we can conclude that:

1. ‘Occupation’ is the only criteria you consider as part of your “Human Rights and Trade Policy”

2. Denial of equal rights to women and/or minorities is NOT one of your criteria of interest

3. Persecution of gays and lesbians is NOT one of your criteria of interest

4. Brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents is NOT one of your criteria of interest

5. Sponsoring and glorifying terrorism is NOT one of your criteria of interest

6. State sponsored anti-Semitism is NOT one of your criteria of interest

7. The Co-Op is happy to trade with all 58 Muslim countries in the world even though they are all guilty of the human rights abuses listed in 2-6.

8. Conducting "illegal wars far from a country’s own borders” is NOT one of your criteria of interest and that is why the Co-Op is not boycotting goods from the USA, France, Italy, Holland ... and the UK etc.

9. The Co-op is selective in which 'international consensus' it accepts. In particular, it rejects United Nations resolution 242, which specifies that the West Bank does not belong to any national territory but rather is considered disputed territory whose borders are to be determined under a final status peace agreement.

10. The Co-op also rejects the findings of the recent Levy Report.

11. The Co-Op is not aware  that the only legal basis for denouncing the Jews who returned in 1967 to the homes that they had been expelled from in 1948 as “settlers” is by recognizing the Jordanian conquests of those territories, even though those conquests were never recognized or accepted. Not even by the international community.

12. The Co-op are not aware that one of the ICC ‘judges’ who was responsible for the 'international legal ruling' they refer to was Al Khasawneh who had a blatant conflict of interest, since he was an advisor to the King of Jordan and later became the Prime Minister of Jordan

13. The Co-op's notion of occupied territories fails to include the approximately 160 other territories around the world that are ‘disputed’ (each of which necessarily involves one country ‘occupying it’ against the wishes of some other country or national group)?

14. The Co-op's definition does not include genuinely brutal occupations such as: the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, or even the Russian occupation of Abkhazia, especially as China, Russia and Turkey all of have infinitely worse human rights records than Israel

15. The Co-op are not aware that one of the disputed international territories is the Falklands Islands, which Argentina claims is illegally occupied by the UK and that a significant majority of countries in the UN now agree with the Argentine position.

16. The Co-op are not aware that any notion of an ‘international consensus’ is fundamentally irrelevant because the United Nations contains 58 Muslim states – all human rights abusers as described above - who provide a built-in ‘consensus’ on any anti-Israel motion that anybody cares to think of

17. The Co-op is happy to “continue to seek increased trade with Palestinian businesses.” despite the corrupt Palestinian Authority being guilty of all of the human rights offences listed above

18. The Co-op believes that Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East where all minorities have equal rights – is a worse human rights violator than Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China etc

19.  The Co-op's policy to boycott goods produced by Jewish communities in the West Bank is indeed pure anti-Semitism

20. The Co-Op did indeed get hoodwinked into a nonsensical hypocritical policy (that will ultimately be self-damaging) by a small group of congenital anti-Semites disguised as ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists.