Boycott Israel? Try it.

Editorial

The latest skirmish over Canadian attitudes toward Israel is developing in strange quarters, and it is a reminder of how utterly irrational the anti-Israel movement can be.

A boycott resolution is being placed before the annual general meeting of Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), a member-owned outdoor provisioning retailer with stores in Victoria, Vancouver, North Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec and Halifax. (See cover story this week.)

MEC is, we are reminded, a co-operative enterprise, whose members are free to enter into whatever policies they deem advisable. But, given that MEC carries products from countries like India, Thailand and Sri Lanka, which have labor practices that are atrocious in comparison with Israel's free collective bargaining process and legislated workers' protections, singling out Israel seems unfair on that count. Given that MEC carries consumer goods from authoritarian dictatorships like China and Vietnam, it hardly seems appropriate to single out the only pluralist democracy in the Middle East.

But this is the conundrum of anti-Israel activism: it defies belief and logic by obsessing on Israel, while ignoring genocides – actual genocides – around the world, as well as a million lesser human catastrophes. The MEC resolution, whether it succeeds or fails, is the local retail version of the United Nations conference on human rights, Durban II, taking place this week in Geneva. Either case is a symptom of a human illness, a myopic fixation on Israel that distracts from the real and grave problems of the world.

The boycott concept itself, which is an age-old, tried-and-true method of exerting force, has its place. But when the same people who are calling for a boycott and other acts of isolation and vilification against Israel while, at the same time, urging "dialogue" and "engagement" with terror entities like North Korea, Iran and Hezbollah, the mind staggers to find words for the intellectual and moral carnage being perpetrated by people who probably miscall themselves "progressive." Any attempt to name this irrational and intolerant behavior for what it is results in a tsunami of condemnation on the messenger. So make up your own mind: we have.

But if the anti-Israel extremists had a scrap of principle, they would carry out their abominable moral crusade in a comprehensive way. To do so, however, would demonstrate the duplicity and hypocrisy that defines them.

It's easy to boycott Israeli sandals or incidental products that most British Columbians probably consider luxuries anyway. But it is incumbent on these boycotters, if they are to maintain any credibility, to boycott the full line of Israeli contributions to the world.

We expect the boycotters will immediately abandon their personal computers if, as most do, they contain any Intel Pentium processing technology, Windows NT operating system, firewall protection or instant messenger capability. Do not try calling the boycotters on their cellular telephones – if they have any principle, they won't answer the Zionist-created contraptions the rest of us carry around. If the boycotters or their loved ones fall ill, say, with cancer, God forbid, we trust that they will put principle ahead of selfishness and decline any of the revolutionary advances Israeli research has brought the world of medicine, including cancer-seeking ingestible "gut cam" video "pills." The women among the boycotters can certainly be free to stick with traditional mammography, although a radiation-free breast cancer diagnostic test is available thanks to Israeli science. In the middle of a heart attack, we hope the boycotters will sustain the moral pain without the breakthrough Israeli advances in diagnosis and treatment.

If the boycotters can temporarily sublimate their passions from anger to amour, let's hope they checked the label of their Victoria's Secret garment to ensure it's not of the Zionist variety. Likewise, their Playtex, Wonderbra, DKNY, Banana Republic or Gap garments.

Then there are all those companies that have supported various Israeli causes. For example, we assume the boycotters have already rejected Starbucks Coffee.

If the stench of injustice becomes too overpowering, the boycotters best ensure they do not seek the scent of Giorgio Armani, Aramis or MAC Cosmetics to cover it up. And, as the boycotters' crocodile tears for the oppressed roll down their cheeks, they had better not reach for a Kleenex. When the world's unfairness piles up and the lines on the boycotters' faces turn to indelible crevices, they alone among people will be denied the emolliating recourse of Revlon, Clinique, Aveda and a host of other products we Zionists can use to reduce the impact of the world's cares on our bodies.

And, finally, when the hard work of struggling for justice arouses its inevitable thirst, the boycotters better not reach for a Coke. Or a Sprite, Sunkist, Dr. Pepper or Perrier.

These are just a few of the things that would be treife to the boycotters if they were people of principle. But, of course, if they were people of principle, they would be dedicating their lives to things far more constructive than boycotting Israel.

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