New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio (Photo: Maxine Dovere/The Algemeiner)
The campaign to boycott Israeli products at Brooklyn’s Park Slope Food Co-op takes a big step tonight, with members set to vote on whether to hold a referendum on the boycott question. And as Matthew Taylor notes here, the city’s leading officials have raced to see who can make the most hyperbolic claim about what the boycott movement represents (Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a man who flew into Israel just as the brutal assault on Gaza was getting underway, wins with his “massacre” line).
An important backdrop to the story is the upcoming mayoral race in 2013. As the New York Times notes, the top officials who have come out against the boycott–Christine Quinn, Scott Stringer and Bill de Blasio–are all likely candidates for mayor.
De Blasio is known as a progressive in city politics–but he hits the same note on the boycott that his establishment-backed mayoral rival Quinn does. This is because the continued backing of the Jewish establishment is important for all these candidates’ campaigns, and coming out strongly against the boycott efforts is one way to show off your Israel advocate credentials. You can’t be mayor of New York without those credentials, it seems.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC), a coordinating body for major Jewish organizations in New York, must be happy. It spends time, and a lot of money, bringing elected officials to Israel to tour the country, as Quinn recently did. De Blasio and Stringer frequently show up to JCRC-organized events. And the JCRC has been actively fighting against the Park Slope BDS effort by advising the “More Hummus, Please” anti-BDS group that has formed within the Co-Op on how to get their message out. The JCRC is also part of the Israel Action Network, the $6 million initiative created at the urging of the Israeli government that aims to combat BDS efforts.
No wonder the boycott efforts have run into heavy opposition. But at least Jodi Rudoren, the incoming New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, gets the absurdity of the situation. She tweeted a link to the Times article detailing city officials’ opposition to the boycott, and quipped, “mayor, would be mayors pledge allegiance to Israel.”
We’ll see tonight if the powerful opposition works.
Lotta people “pledge allegiance to Israel”. That’s what single-loyalty is all about. You can only have one liege lord at a time.
$3B/yr for Israel but not a dime to combat global warming. (If you want to see some “warming”, get a look at the fires outside Denver (slide-show) and it’s not even summer yet. Been dry out there, dry. Lotta CO2 being added to all the rest.)
Not that long ago I used to think it didn’t matter if an elected official at the local level, a mayor in particular, were a Zionist. (I once voted for Sam Katz in Philadelphia, disgusted with the Street administration’s open corruption, and not amused by the mayor’s seeming cluelessness about certain issues.) Not any more.
i’m wondering if you’re planning on attending tonight Alex. i’ll be checking your tweets.
RE: “The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC), a coordinating body for major Jewish organizations in New York…spends time, and a lot of money, bringing elected officials to Israel to tour the country, as Quinn recently did.” ~ Alex Kane
FROM AIPAC’S WEBSITE (undated):
SOURCE – http://www.aipac.org/en/in-the-news?newsid=%7BF4379DFB-D32D-49C8-965B-37E03013BEE3%7D
how many times can israel firsters such as these candidates play the antisemitic card before people say “play that card once more and I’ll show you what antisemitism really is?” An outcome which would please Israel firsters, convinced as they are that the way to resolve the Israel’s “demographic problem” is to do whatever it takes to stir up so virulent a form of antisemitism in America that Jewish-Americans will decide to pack up and move to Israel. Except it ain’t gonna work, Israel firsters, being that there are
more than enough of us Jewish-Americans who are on to your game and will call your bluff by exposing you for the traitors that you are. Palestine for the Palestinians and however many Jews decide to remain there as equals among equals. Afterwards those of you who were in government can look forward to being put on trial for having served the interests of a foreign entity –
“members of the jury, on the charge of serving the interests of the Zionist entity Israel, how do you find the defendents?
“Guilty as charged, your honor