Friday, September 23, 2016

Fwd: Please Join us for the PSFC (Park Slope Food Coop) anti BDS Press Conference on Tuesday September 27 6:45


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robin Ticker <faigerayzel@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 1:39 AM
Subject: Please Join us for the PSFC (Park Slope Food Coop) anti BDS Press Conference on Tuesday September 27 6:45
To: David and Beth Boyle Gurfein <beth@gurfeinforamerica.com>, Philip J Rosenthal PHD Esq <phil@rosenthalforcongress.com>, Rebecca Harary <rebecca@thepropelnetwork.org>, Chaim Deutsch <cdeutsch@council.nyc.gov>, Dov and Shani Hikind <hikindd@assembly.state.ny.us>, Josiel at Scott Stringer <jestrel@comptroller.nyc.gov>
Cc: cindy grosz <thefivetownscorner@gmail.com>, Benjamin Ryberg <ben@thelawfareproject.org>, "Brooke Goldstein Att." <brooke@thelawfareproject.org>, Eytan Sosnovich <eytan@zoa.org>, Mort Klein <mklein7@verizon.net>, Liz Berney <lizberney@gmail.com>, Helen Freedman <helenfreedman18@gmail.com>, cmixson@cnglocal.com, "Ramey, Corinne" <corinne.ramey@wsj.com>, Jeffrey T Schwartz <jeffreytschwartzesquire@gmail.com>, Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center <shurathadinisrael@gmail.com>, Avi Posnick <avip@standwithus.com>, Noam Gilboord <GilBoordN@jcrcny.org>, MillerM@jcrcny.org, "Judy (Freedman) Kadish" <judy@afsi.org>, "Jonathan J. Grauman" <jonathan@afsi.org>, Moshe And Leah Goldsmith <leamoshe@netvision.net.il>, Chloe Valdary <cvaldary@gmail.com>, Rhudy Eagle <scoutingeagle14@yahoo.com>, Al Ettlinger Park Slope Food Coop <bezelset@mindspring.com>, Mildred Ruttner <brooklynx2@verizon.net>, Sharon Eagle <notstressed1@yahoo.com>


bs"d



Dear David Gurfein, Philip Rosenthal, Rebecca Harary, Lee Zeldin, Chaim Deutsch and Cindy (please forward to Lee Zeldin since I didn't have an email address for him) and Dov Hikind

Everyone wants to show that they are anti BDS.  City Council Resolution, Governor Cuomo Executive Order etc. Exposing  BDS is the topic of the day. 

Let us take the theoretical condemnation to a practical level. 

We have an opportunity to make the Park Slope Food Coop into a shining example of why it is not a smart idea to have BDS as part of one's agenda.

The Park Slope Food Coop committee to abolish BDS from the Coop have been featured in the Wall Street Journal 

Buying Organic Groceries in Brooklyn Can Be a Serious Trial
Co-op holds trial for members deemed 'uncooperative;' the SodaStream Four

as well as in the Park Slope Courier.  

Top of the pops! Soda Stream rewards banned pro-Israel Park Slope Co-op members BY COLIN MIXSON Brooklyn Paper http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/39/36/dtg-seltzer-for-exiles-2016-08-26-bk.html

Park Slope Food Co-op suspends four members over Israel boycott spat BY COLIN MIXSON Brooklyn Paper

We are calling upon Press, politicians and caring people to come  on Tuesday night September 27th where we are holding a Press Conference to protest BDS at the Park Slope Food Coop for the past 8 years. 

Please join us.  Let us know if you can make it or if you can send someone to represent you, or if not please send us a letter in support of our efforts!  Thank you in advance for caring!

Here is a sample letter we sent to the Comptroller's office..  


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robin Ticker <faigerayzel@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: Invite to Scott Stringer Comptroller as per conversation with Rhudy Andreoli: Please Join us for the PSFC (Park Slope Food Coop) anti BDS Press Conference on Tuesday September 27 6:45
To: Josiel at Scott Stringer <jestrel@comptroller.nyc.gov>



Bs"d

Dear Josiel, amv"sh

Thank you for taking your time to speak with Rhudy Andreoli, a member of the "Park Slope Food Coop Committee to abolish BDS from our Coop" and one of the four long term members who got suspended from the Coop because of an anti BDS protest.

This group, "The Park Slope Food Coop Committee to abolish BDS in our Coop"  will be holding a Press Conference outside of St. Francis Xavier School this coming Tuesday on September 27, 2016.  This press conference will coincide with the monthly general meeting of the Park Slope Food Coop. 

(A general meeting of the Park Slope Food Coop is generally held the last Tuesday of every month at 7pm)  

We are asking for a representative of the Comptrollers office to join us, to condemn the Park Slope Food Coop.  The Park Slope Food Coop is an example of an organization, and a business that has engaged in BDS activity.   

It is our hope that this resolution in the City Council will lead to legislation that will discourage and prevent BDS in the Coop and elsewhere in NYC. 

The Park Slope Food Coop has been actively pushing and subjecting their 17,000 members to BDS propaganda for 8 years.  Please visit their Park Slope Food Coop BDS facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/ParkSlopeFoodCoopBDS/ . The time has come to finally expose the lies and put an end to BDS bias in the Coop, and their one sided presentation, and to present the truth about Israel.  We wish to  expose the lie about the "Occupation" and reeducate Coop members with true and positive facts and messages about Israel.

Israel has been the pioneer and in the forefront of research and development of organic farming, hot houses for growing bug free lettuce and produce, drip irrigation techniques and  desalinization plants, which have helped farmers in Israel and whose technology has improved the lives of many throughout the world especially in third world countries.  Surely these efforts would be of great interest in a Food Coop.  However, this is a far cry from the distorted BDS presentations of human rights violations and antisemitic BDS demonization of Israel presented at the coop..  

The BDS narrative slanders and defames Israel and the Settlers of Judea and Samaria who by occupation, are engaged in productive agricultural pursuits. It has been proven that BDS supporters in contrast are primarily actively engaged in encouraging  economic, political and physical destruction of Israel and not in building nor bettering the lives of Palestinians economically nor otherwise. 

Proper illumination, presenting Israel in a positive non political light, has been seriously suppressed in all the forums in the Park Slope Food Coop.

 The PSFC General Membership Meeting will be help this coming Tuesday.  We wish to be there, outside, and we want the press to be there so that our anti BDS Voice will be finally heard and not suppressed. 
 
General Meeting Agenda September 2016 
Tuesday, September 27, 7:00 p.m.
Meeting Location: St. Francis Xavier School, 763 President St., between Sixth and Seventh Avenues
You must be a  Food Coop member to attend the General Meeting.
Please bring your Coop I.D. card to be admitted.

Background of the formation of the Park Slope Food Coop Committee to abolish BDS:

The disruption of a BDS presentation occurred on April 28, 2015 at a PSFC General Meeting.  At that meeting, an agenda item to boycott Sodastream was on the agenda  having been approved by the agenda committee.   This happened in spite of the Coop's general membership vote against BDS..  The question still remains. Why was there a BDS item scheduled?.

Many protested this BDS presentation for obvious reasons especially when false provocative pictures portraying IDF as violators of Palestinian rights were hung up.  Four protesters who went on the stage to take down the pictures were then singled out for disciplinary action by the Coop by the Disciplinary Committee of the Coop.  . . 

A year later on April 10, 2016, the PSFC held a "trial",  where these 4 were found guilty of disrupting the meeting and were suspended from the Food Coop for a year. The accused 4 never faced nor found out who their individual accusers were and the transcript of the proceedings of the "trial" was denied to them upon request.

You can visit this link for more details and read a first hand account of Al Ettlinger, one of the accused. http://afsibrooklyn.blogspot.com/2016/04/martin-ettlinger-insider-perspective-of.html

Here is another account of what happened by Millie Ruttner. . Millie is another one of the accused.   https://docs.google.com/document/d/13fQtGQnXMRMmMyfKGyob-BsZJ9NoGWADr7qO1xwc5W4/edit#  

Millie writes:

In their attempt to present their agenda, they showed a video of someone in a uniform beating a civilian.  This and other pictures that were shown intimated that this was an Israeli soldier beating a Palestinian civilian.  Nobody on the agenda committee attempted to question the validity of this video beforehand and the impact caused an uproar when shown at the meeting where there were several hundred people. Someone on the Board of Directors suggested that this video be taken down. But the BDS faction overroad them and the video continued. This was the most disgusting and horrific example of fascism and anti-semetic propaganda that I have ever experienced anywhere.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
The Coop has been indoctrinating its 17,000 members on different platforms
  • via their facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/ParkSlopeFoodCoopBDS/ .,
  • by continuously presenting BDS Agenda Items at their monthly meetings 
  • continuously putting out BDS articles into their bimonthly  Lineswaiter Gazette
  • incorporating BDS presentations and presentations about Islamophobia and about the evils of racial profiling and vetting of Muslim migrants into their regular reading group meetings.  
  • They do not give equal time to allow the lies to be refuted nor the opportunity to present Israel in a truthful and positive light. They claim to be the victim of freedom of expression while they suppress expression of  those who attempt to oppose their false narrative..
  • When opposition to their BDS agenda gets too heated they suspend any discussion of BDS in the paper saying that it is too charged.  It is clear that they are afraid that if their members actually hear the other side of the narrative they might actually understand that their BDS education is false.They might question why vetting Syrian migrants is such a bad thing... By suspending all discussion they lay low, hidden, until the wave of opposition dies down only to raise their ugly heads given an open opportunity at a future date. This is the BDS modus operandi elsewhere as well.
  • Even if the Park Slope Food Coop doesn't officially boycott Israeli products, unofficially, there are very minimal products from Israel at the Park Slope Food Coop even though there are many members who would love to buy Israeli products
The question remains how did a grocery store selling organic produce turn into a political know it all and self appointed judge about who are the rightful occupiers of Judea and Samaria?  Why is this the business of an organic food coop and even if it was, can they legally prove that the Land belongs to the Palestinians?

The answer is no but they don't allow that open discussion.
 
They clearly fear loss of credibility when their members are presented the facts.

How can this a coop who sells only healthy produce, an organization, a private enterprise, that profess to be the champions of human rights deal so heartlessly with their long term loyal, hard working, coop family members of over 40 years denying them the opportunity to continue to purchase healthy organic food at affordable prices and fire them from their jobs?  Are they not embarrassed for shaming their most dedicated, honest, loyal,  hard working family Coop members by taking ridiculous disciplinary measures and conducting a "freaking trial" against them?,  ( to quote Rhudi another accused defendant)

 
The crime? The disruption of a poisonous BDS presentation which has no place in a healthy food coop!  
 
Please note the deep frustration of being continuously silenced and forced to listen to a poisonous narrative with no recourse but to swallow it....

It is clear that BDS is not interested in human rights, Palestinian rights nor freedom of expression.  They are interested in the destruction of Israel via economic boycotts and the destruction of Israel by establishing a Judenrein Israel, a Jew free Judea and Samaria,  the heartland of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people of thousands of years!
 
The purpose of this Press Conference is to educate and raise awareness that BDS has infiltrated and disrupted day to day life in the Park Slope Food Coop and is not only operating on College Campus.  

The City Council took the courageous first step to condemn  BDS in the City Council.  The next step is to actually enforce negative consequences upon those who engage in BDS by spreading lies and false indoctrination of BDS and deny a livelihood to worthy businesses and suppress freedom of expression of those who wish to illuminate the truth of the matter with facts. 

Josiel, please speak with others in the Comptroller's office if they can join us on September 27th.  We can be reached by email.  

--
Sincerely,

Robin Ticker
Co-chair Brooklyn AFSI (American's for a Safe Israel) active in the Park Slope Committee to abolish BDS from the Park Slope Food Coop.




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