Shop-in at Rainbow a Success!

Since I was in the mood to go yesterday, I did. But it sounds like I missed out on all the fun! I had my kaffiyeh on and hoped to see others with theirs on too, but alas I did not. But I filled out the card expressing my support and talked to several people about my support of boycotting Israel, including a Zionist who didn't know anything about the boycott, but was not happy to hear about it from me! Ooops!

My family will NEVER spend a dime at Rainbow. The only way to stop Israeli genocide is to boycott ALL Israeli products. Rainbow should have dropped ALL products from racist Israel.

Follow the lead of enlightened European anti Israel boycotts and shop only at stores free from Israeli products. You Zionist may think you have won a battle, but you will lose the war...and your shitty little country as well.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/12/13/MN41636.DTL

One result of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is a growing poverty suffered by both communities. The two-year intifada and Israel's response largely explain the economic desperation of the Palestinians, formerly one of the most prosperous of Arab communities. Israel also has been hit hard by the violence as well as pressures rooted in the country's jigsaw of assimilation.
Moti and Michal Yerachi are paying a heavy price for their poverty.

Next Thursday, Michal, 32, will abort the couple's unborn fifth child because they are too poor to support another family member.

"It's terrible; a child will die because we have no money," said Michal, now three-months' pregnant, sitting in the family's mobile home in Jerusalem's impoverished Givat Hamtos neighborhood.

The hillside "village" of caravans in the southeastern corner of the city is home to about 60 low-income families, including a number of Ethiopian families that were housed in what was meant to be a temporary absorption site after arriving in the country more than a decade ago.

Unemployed, and surviving on handouts and less than $700 in social security a month, the Yerachis are part of a growing underclass in this country.

Approximately 1.2 million Israelis -- almost a fifth of the population -- now live in poverty, a recent government report said.

The situation has deteriorated so much in recent years that Israel now rates second only to the United States among Western nations in terms of social inequality.
continued........

"Israel now rates second only to the United States among Western nations in terms of social inequality."

So? This is what capitalism is all about - some are billionaires while others are dying in the streets. Join the club.

Are you going to boycott US made goods too? Somehow I think the US is doing far more harm to the world than Israel. And where are you going to re-direct your grocery needs? Safeway, Trader Joe's? That'll show those bastards... oh wait.

I just got off the phone with a customer service rep at Rainbow and she tells me the discussion is far from over, even though they caved (my words) for now and are restocking the Israeli items, until they have a group vote. I chastised them for caving and said that this boycott against apartheid Israel is every bit as legitimate as the one that was against apartheid South Africa. That was far easier however since there wasn't the big sympathy card for white South Africans, the Holocaust which Zionists always use for an excuse to turn around and persecute the Palestinians. Also there are not so many white South Africans in America, as there are Jews in America who say they are American but also consider themselves virtual agents and citizens of Israel. When people finally realize that Jewish supremacism in Israel is every bit as wrong as white supremacism in South Africa was, they will back this boycott. I will no longer go out of my way to go to shop at Rainbow until they full-heartedly support the boycott of apartheid Israel.

The Examiner Staff

A pro-Israel group's protest of the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative was abandoned Sunday when the nonprofit store agreed to restock Israeli products it had stopped carrying.

The Grassroots for Israel group had targeted the Folsom Street store after Grassroots spokesman Ian Zimmerman went to the shop to pick up food for Hanukkah. Zimmerman was told Rainbow did not carry goods made in Israel because of concerns about that country's human-rights record.

Spokespersons from Rainbow, a health-food institution that was started 27 years ago, insisted the store never had an official boycott of the products, but rather that two department managers -- in the packaged food and bulk-food departments -- unilaterally decided to ban the goods for political reasons.

Those decisions never received the backing of the board of directors, a required step under the cooperative's official boycott policy. The board of directors then voted to reverse the departments' ban.

In a statement, the store said, "We apologize for the lack of oversight in allowing our internal processes to break down." The store said some of the removed products, such as Middle Eastern couscous, were returned to the shelves. "We will continue to buy and sell products that meet our mission statement: 'Buying clean, safe, healthy, locally produced products from socially beneficial companies whenever possible,' " the statement said.

Grassroots for Israel's Doron Levitan said that when he found out Friday that Rainbow decided to bring back the Israeli products, it was too late to cancel the protest and boycott scheduled for Sunday. "It should not have happened, but since it happened, it's good they took responsibility and not only reversed it, but also apologized," said Levitan.

Levitan said he was not aware of any other San Francisco businesses that have boycotted Israeli products for political or religious reasons. "It was the first time ever that we were aware of something here," said Levitan. "It was a big deal for us."

Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 23, 2002

Besieged by Jewish protesters, San Francisco's Rainbow Grocery backed away from a partial boycott of Israeli-made goods Sunday, ending the dispute but leaving many of the demonstrators still seething.

The worker-owned supermarket caused an uproar when two of its largest departments, packaged foods and bulk foods, banned certain Israeli-made goods to protest Israel's treatment of Palestinians. But as 200 people gathered in front of the grocery Sunday for a demonstration, the cooperative's board of directors announced that the boycott was null and void.

"We apologize for the lack of oversight in allowing our internal processes to break down," said a director, Seanetta, who goes by only one name, reading from a prepared statement explaining that the two departments acted on their own. "We at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative do not tolerate any anti-Semitism on any level, or any form of oppression."

Representatives of Grassroots for Israel and the Jewish Community Relations Council quickly declared victory. "As a wave of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israel sentiment sweeps the world, we cannot sit idly by," said Jeffrey Halbrecht, the founder of Grassroots for Israel, to cheers from the crowd. "It is our duty to loudly denounce lies and hatred directed against Israel and to proudly proclaim the truth about this small, beleaguered country."

But not everybody was against the boycott. Several members of Jews For A Free Palestine held up signs and loudly proclaimed their support for Rainbow's ban. "We refuse to be silent when the Israeli and U.S. governments support terror against Palestinians in our name," said Samantha Liapes.

The intensity of feeling about the issue was best illustrated when three Russian Jewish immigrants confronted a man who said he supports Jews and democracy, but not what he called "the Zionist state of Israel." "My father fought the Nazis," shouted one elderly woman with a thick Russian accent. "You are Jewish, and you support those who kill Jews? One day they will come for you. Then what will you say?"

December 20, 2002

Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Inc. does not have a boycott on products from Israel. When it was discovered that two departments had a ban-which did not meet our cooperative's policy for a boycott to occur-the Board of Directors voted to make the decision of these departments null and void. We apologize for the lack of oversight in allowing our internal processes to break down. We regret any distress or suffering caused by these actions to the Bay Area community. Products that were removed, such as the Middle Eastern couscous, are already back on the shelf. We will continue to buy and sell products that meet our Mission Statement: "Buying clean, safe, healthy, locally produced products from socially beneficial companies whenever possible." We at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Inc. do not tolerate any anti-Semitism on any level, or any form of oppression.

Board of Directors

Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Inc.

It's very WIMPY of the Rainbow store to back down, but let's face it, it is SUCH a drag to have to put up with all the screaming Zionists who are so well organized and full of torrents of misinformation and constantly whine about the Holocaust (as if Jewish suffering is somehow more important than anyone else's suffering, like the Palestinians for instance.) Would YOU have to want to put up with that day in and day out? God. I pity them! But personally, I will continue to boycott all Israeli goods. http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org http://www.divest-from-israel-campaign.org It would be also be appropriate to patronize Middle Eastern Muslim's stores whenever possible. You KNOW they will most likely not have any products from racist, apartheid Israel.