"Are the people supporting the boycott opposing boycotts of Jewish owned shops and especially the violence? Not just nominally but loudly? I happen to support BSD, in fact our local co-op was the first in the country to vote to stop carrying Israeli goods. But I really think it is part of the work of this type of movement to get a bit loud when vermin try to hijack it. And anyone who tries to transform a boycott of Israeli goods into an Anti-Semitic movement is vermin."
I think that the people that are boycotting Tesco and Marks and Spencer would not accept that their targetting of these Jewish-owned shops is anti-Semitic. I think it is. Consider this report of the protests over the Freedom Flotilla in Edinburgh: 'Several hundred people symbolically blockaded the entrance to Israeli goods retailer Marks & Spencer, with a chant of "Boycott; sanctions; free Palestine!" ringing out.' (Socialist Worker, 8 June 2010) Many businesses import Israeli goods, but 'Israeli goods retailer Marks and Spencer' is a roundabout way of saying 'Jewish shop-keepers Marks and Spencer'.
Here are the pickets in Ireland, where protestors tangled with security guards taking goods off the shelves http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/irish-anti-war/9006236.jpg http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/irish-anti-war/9006230.jpg
I guess some people would say I am being prissy about it, but picketing out Jewish shops is just too close to Germany in the 30s, with all its attendant implications of Jews leeching off the poor. By all means picket the embassy, but not the shops.
