The naming of Boris Johnson as Britain’s Foreign Minister set off in his home country a storm of name-calling and hand-wringing that approximates the Democrat reaction to Donald Trump. Without wading into British politics, there is one specific incident that the Daily Mail called an impolitic “gaffe” that should be assessed at greater length — and from a different angle:

Last November local [Palestinian] officials called off a visit to Palestine on safety grounds after the then-London mayor told an audience in Tel Aviv that a trade boycott of Israeli goods was “completely crazy” and supported by “corduroy- jacketed, snaggletoothed, lefty academics in the UK.”

Palestinian officials accused him of adopting a “misinformed and disrespectful” pro-Israel stance and said he risked creating protests if he visited the West Bank.

Johnson was right on the merits: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is largely a function of university campuses and has little to do with Israel-UK trade, which is robust and growing. But the incident should be understood as a window into Palestinian strategy, and as such should not be overlooked.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas did not use the opportunity presented by Mr. Johnson’s visit to offer his view, to explain why Johnson was wrong, to promote UK-Palestinian trade, or even to argue for BDS. He reflexively threatened a prominent European guest with violence. It surely would have erupted on schedule if Johnson had continued his visit. The Palestinians are no longer interested in discussing their interests/demands/wishes. They have entered a period of ultimatum: one-hundred percent or nothing; my way or violence even with their friends.

It was in the atmosphere of “no criticism/no negotiation” that Abbas went to a European Parliament meeting in Brussels in June, following an inconclusive French-sponsored “peace process” meeting that included neither Israelis nor Palestinians — a mechanism Abbas assumed would result in French demands on Israel. It did not — putting Abbas in a foul mood for the European Parliament meeting that was prelude to the release of the Middle East Quartet report on prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Again, Abbas expected to hear only criticism of Israel.

Then, European Parliament President Martin Shulz tried to arrange a meeting between Abbas and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. Rivlin agreed, Abbas declined — and it was later revealed that Abbas even changed hotels when he discovered he and Rivlin were sharing a roof. It was in Brussels where Abbas claimed that some Israeli rabbis were calling for Israel to poison Palestinian water — an echo of Suha Arafat’s claim in 1999 that Israelis were poisoning Palestinian air and water. Abbas received a standing ovation at the end of his remarks; Suha received a kiss from then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas receives a standing ovation at the European Parliament in Brussels, after falsely claiming in his speech that Israeli rabbis were calling to poison Palestinian water. Abbas later recanted and admitted that his claim had been false. (Image source: European Parliament)

Under pressure from people who recognized a centuries-old debunked piece of anti-Semitism, Abbas recanted and admitted that his claim had been false. But such was the desire of the European parliamentarians to protect him that his blood libel was erased from all official documents. Which makes his next move even less understandable.

After much wrangling, the Middle East Quartet report on the future of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the “two state solution” was released on 1 July. Before the release, leaks to the press strongly suggested that

“The focus on Israel will be its most contentious aspect.” [Ha’aretz] quoted a senior Israeli government official as stating: “The main question is how harsh criticism of the settlements will be. All the members of the Quartet can rally around this issue without a problem.”

Calling it an “eagerly awaited report,” Reuters said it would demand that “Israel should stop building settlements, denying Palestinian development and designating land for exclusive Israeli use that Palestinians seek for a future state.”

And it did, as reported here, here, here, and even here. The Quartet said that Israeli building policies raise

“legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions, which are compounded by the statements of some Israeli ministers that there should never be a Palestinian state… Israel should cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion…”

But that wasn’t enough for Abbas, because even Quartet members found it impossible to ignore the seven-month-long so-called “stabbing intifada” and the drumbeat of incitement from the Palestinian Authority that encourages and honors the murderers of Israeli civilians. Nor could members ignore definitive evidence of Hamas rebuilding the Gaza tunnel infrastructure to attack Israel. In a relatively mild section, the Quartet criticized Palestinian leaders for “not consistently and clearly” condemning terrorist attacks and, for the first time, said the arms buildup and military activities in Gaza must stop.

Nabil Abu Rudainah, spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, was furious, saying:

“Any report that does not include the full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, including occupied Jerusalem, and does not include a recognition of the illegality of settlement will not lead to real and lasting peace and will lead to more tension and more instability in the region.”

In other words, more Palestinian-incited violence.

The fit of pique continued as Abbas announced that the PA would boycott the Quartet — its best friends in Europe plus Russia and the U.S. — and attempt to block consideration of the report in the UN.

Unable to countenance even mild criticism, and unwilling or unable to engage in serious conversation even with European interlocutors, much less with Israel, Abbas may finally have made the Palestinian cause too difficult for the Europeans, bring the circle back around to Boris Johnson. Not only did he criticize BDS (in which he clearly criticized British academics more than Palestinians), he continued, “I cannot think of anything more foolish” than to boycott “a country that when all is said and done is the only democracy in the region, the only place that has in my view, a pluralist, open society.”

If there was a gaffe, it wasn’t by Johnson.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House, January 27, 2017. (Image source: UK Prime Minister’s Office)

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow declared that he would not invite Trump to make a speech before Parliament due to the president’s alleged “sexism” and “racism,” and the British Parliament’s opposition to those stances, as well as, further, due to Trump’s temporary restrictions on immigration until better procedures for vetting applicants can be put in place .

Bercow, however, never adhered to due process: he should first have consulted the Speaker of the House of Lords or the Lord Chamberlain.

If Bercow thought that a ban from addressing Parliament would stop Trump from addressing the British people, he seems to have been wrong. Press reports suggest that Trump is planning massive stadium events. Perhaps that is the repeated failure of Trump’s opposition: to see his appeal to the masses.

Furthermore, where was Bercow when Emir of Kuwait visited? Kuwait has a poor record on women’s rights, and refuses entry to those with Israeli passports. Kuwait Airways and even dropped its flights between New York and London not to “break the law” by possibly carrying Israeli passengers.

How come, then, that Bercow did not think it advisable to oppose the Emir of Kuwait’s visit due to its “sexism” and “immigration ban”? No, Bercow granted the Emir a speech in the Queen’s Robing Room.

Bercow also granted a speech in Westminster Hall to the President of Indonesia — a country that canes women for “standing too close to their boyfriends”; that has applied sharia law and that has put the homosexual community under “unprecedented attack”.

In addition to these seeming slip-ups, Bercow also received a representative of the North Korean regime for afternoon tea in Parliament, and received representatives from the Communist single-party state of Vietnam.

So, it is evidently acceptable to be a representative of some of the world’s most repressive dictatorships, with policies far worse than Trump’s, and yet visit Parliament, but a democratically elected leader in the free world and a key ally, who may hold some views with which Bercow disagrees, makes him unacceptable.

Some MPs have rightly raised concerns that the Speaker is “using the Speaker’s chair to pontificate on international affairs.” The Speaker in Britain’s Parliament is supposed to be impartial; some MPs have alleged that Bercow has “broken his employment contract with members of parliament,” in which he is bound to remain impartial.

Others open to allegations of hypocrisy include Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, who demanded that Donald Trump not to be allowed a state visit or even to enter the UK for his incorrectly-named “Muslim ban” — actually, only a temporary ban on people from seven countries, designated by former President Barack Obama, and over which Congress gave the president the power to restrict people who might be security risks.

On the same day in which Sadiq Khan made these comments, he then hosted a party to which he invited the ambassadors of Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen – all of which ban Israelis, and some of which even ban peopled holding passports stamped by Israel. Where was the outrage then, the mass protests, the marches against Khan for welcoming them?

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, also made it clear that he would not welcome Trump addressing Parliament and that he opposed a state visit. How ironic from someone who has welcomed former members of the IRA to Parliament, shortly after the IRA bombed the Conservative Party conference. He also welcomed Hezbollah and Hamas, and called them his “friends”. Hamas is a genocidal organisation that remains dedicated to killing Jews and destroying Israel, and Hezbollah is dedicated to the obliteration of Israel.

It seems that there is a double standard here: Trump may have previously made tasteless remarks, but are his policies really worse than those of the Iran or North Korea?

As the British author George Orwell is alleged to have said, “Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

What is it that the people trying to keep Trump from speaking are afraid others might hear?

Robbie Travers, a political commentator and consultant, is Executive Director of Agora, former media manager at the Human Security Centre, and a law student at the University of Edinburgh.

The conviction of radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary — the most prominent extremist in Britain — has been widely welcomed in the UK. For years his followers and he have infuriated the vast majority of the British public (including most British Muslims) with their inflammatory and hate-filled rhetoric. They have also provided a constant stream of people willing to follow through the words with actions. More people around Choudary have been convicted of terrorism offences in the UK than any other Islamist group — including al-Qaeda.

But Choudary’s conviction for encouraging people to join ISIS should not be greeted as though that is the end of a matter.

The conviction of radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary (centre) — the most prominent extremist in Britain — has been widely welcomed in the UK.

Last week we noted here how, after the murder of an Ahmadiyya Muslim in the UK at the hands of another Muslim, some Muslims are “more Muslim than others” and that those outside a particular theological group can be killed is not an idea held only by the murderer. It is an idea with a significant following in the UK Muslim community, as well as among Muslims worldwide. A recent test of this issue was the execution in January this year in Pakistan of Mumtaz Qadri. This was the man who murdered Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan. Taseer had opposed the strict blasphemy laws which operate in his country. In Qadri’s eyes, Taseer was an apostate for even thinking of watering down the blasphemy laws that jihadists and Islamists such as the Taliban wish to preserve. And so Qadri killed the governor.

Of course one would like to think that everyone could unite in condemning the actions of a man such as Mumtaz Qadri. What is striking is how many people fail to do so, and how many Muslim clerics and religious leaders — even in the West — not only fail to do so but have been open in their praise of Qadri and their condemnation of Pakistan for putting him to death. Prominent among the latter group is the imam of the largest mosque in Scotland — the Glasgow central mosque.

This past month, however, an even more significant event occurred. In July, two Pakistani clerics started a tour of the UK. Their seven-week expedition, called “Sacred Journey,” goes on until September 4, and includes appearances in Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Maidenhead. One of the first things that Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman did when they arrived in the UK was to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop welcomed them in Lambeth Palace and claimed that the meeting would strengthen “interfaith relations,” as well as address “the narrative of extremism and terrorism.” One wonders how far the Archbishop got in this task?

If there is a “narrative of extremism and terrorism,” Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman can take some serious credit for the fact. Both men took an enthusiastic stand in Pakistan in support of Mumtaz Qadri. That is, they supported the murderer of a progressive Pakistani official. Listen here, for instance, to Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman delivering a hysterical speech in support of Mumtaz Qadri while his fellow cleric, Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman, looks on approvingly from the platform.

Here is Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman whipping up the vast crowd of mourners after the funeral of Mumtaz Qadri in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. During his speech he repeatedly refers to Qadri as a shaheed [martyr]. Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral, and afterwards rioted, chanting slogans such as “Qadri, your blood will bring the revolution” and “the punishment for a blasphemer is beheading.”

After Qadri’s execution, Haseeb ur Rehman said on social media “Every person who loves Islam and Prophet is in grief for the martyrdom of Mumtaz Qadri.”

So what are two clerics who approve of murdering reformers and mourn the death of fanatics and assassins doing touring the UK? Shahbaz Taseer, the son of the Salman Taseer, is among those who has criticised the UK authorities for allowing the two men into the country. “These people teach murder and hate,” he has said.

“For me personally I find it sad that a country like England would allow cowards like these men in. It’s countries like the UK and the US that claim they are leading the way in the war against terror [and] setting a standard. Why are they allowing people [in] that give fuel to the fire they are fighting against?”

“They have got hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK,” the imam of the Madina Mosque and Islamic Centre in Oldham, Zahoor Chishti, said of the two clerics. Chishti denied that the event was organised by his mosque and said that he was not aware of the views of the speakers. “When I found out I was upset. I think it was really upsetting and wrong. They come to the UK every year and give messages of love, so that’s why they’re booked on that basis.’

Elsewhere, the “Sacred Journey” tour has already thrown up another interesting connection. Mohammed Shafiq runs a one-man outfit called the “Ramadan Foundation” in the UK, and is regularly called upon by the British media. He appears to be viewed as a “moderate” Muslim because he has been outspoken in opposition to the mass rape of children by gangs of Muslim men. Despite this heroism, his own liberal credentials (not least as a member of the Liberal Democrat party) have often come into question. Several years ago, for instance, when the Liberal Democrat candidate and genuine anti-extremism campaigner Maajid Nawaz re-Tweeted an innocuous cartoon from the “Jesus and Mo” series, Shafiq was among those who tried to get up a lynch-mob against Nawaz. Shafiq wrote on social media that Nawaz was a “Ghustaki Rasool,” Urdu for “defamer of the prophet.” He warned that he would “notify Islamic countries.” Shafiq angrily denied that these and other messages constituted incitement against Nawaz.

But now, on the visit of two clerics to the UK who applaud and mourn Mumtaz Qadri, where is Mohammed Shafiq to be found? Why, warmly greeting the cleric who praises the murderers of reformers and glad-handing with the terrorist-apologists and blasphemy lynch-mob, of course.

Almost everyone in Britain is pleased that the loudmouth Anjem Choudary has gone to jail. Like the hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza before him, Choudary was — as a case — almost too easy. He was the most visible part of the problem. But he was not the greatest or deepest problem in this area. That problem is shown when two extremist clerics with pre-medieval views come to Britain, they are welcomed by an ignorant British establishment. The problem is shown when they tour mosques, they do so to packed houses because they have “hundreds of thousands” of followers of Pakistani origin in the UK. The problem is shown when you scratch the surface of one of the self-proclaimed “moderates” like Mohammed Shafiq and discover that he is happy to pal around with the people who threaten reformers and praise murderers.

That is the problem for British Islam in a nutshell. And that is a problem we still remain woefully unable to confront.

Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England.

During the course of a hot summer Britain’s Labour party is in meltdown on a range of issues. But among the worst parts of its meltdown are those to do with its continuing effort to cover up the party’s serious anti-Semitism problem.

As we have pointed out here before, the party’s leader — Jeremy Corbyn — has such a long history of association and sympathy with some of the world’s most extreme anti-Semites that it is hard to see how the party’s problems could not trickle down as well as up. Now two developments suggest that the Labour body politic has become so wracked by this problem that it is unlikely to recover.

The first demonstration was the confirmation that one of this year’s two “inquiries” into anti-Semitism in the party had been hobbled before it even began. Anyone closely observing this review (ordered by Jeremy Corbyn, after a string of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments by Labour MPs, Councillors and members of the party’s National Executive Committee were exposed) knew that it was unlikely to be anything other than a whitewash. The person in charge of this review — veteran left-wing campaigner Shami Chakrabarti — had already demonstrated it was unlikely that her review would seriously probe the party’s problem; she talked of the problem of anti-Semitism only by also highlighting “Islamophobia and other forms of racism’. This circumlocution — beloved of Jeremy Corbyn himself — avoids tackling the specific problem of anti-Semitism and clearly aspires to dilute the problem in a sea of other challenges.

That the launch of Chakrabarti’s thin and shallow report itself included two anti-Semitic incidents made it look as though Labour’s low could get no worse. But since then, Chakrabarti was interviewed on a new television station in the UK (JTV) and was probed on precisely what she was offered in order to come up with the bland and unremarkable whitewash she had. Chakrabarti had already received criticism for becoming a signed-up member of the Labour party on the day that she was asked to write her “inquiry” into the party. But during her interview she was specifically asked about whether she had been offered the upgrade of a seat in the House of Lords (a peerage) before writing her report, Chakrabarti looked unusually uncomfortable and shuffled around before saying, “I don’t think I want to talk about my future ambitions at this point’. Pressed on the question, she played around with a glass of water before saying “You can ask the question, and I’m going to evade it at this point.”

Within days of this news emerging, the matter of the Labour party’s other anti-Semitism inquiry in the year also returned. Earlier this year, and before the Chakrabarti report, the Labour party commissioned somebody who had already gotten their peerage — Baroness Royall — to investigate accusations of anti-Semitism in the Oxford University Labour Club. Unlike the Chakrabarti whitewash, the Royall report was never published. A brief summary of conclusions released by the Labour party presented the findings as suggesting that there was in essence no particular problem. Now someone — presumably the report’s author herself — has “leaked” the full report. And it makes clear that the Labour party clearly attempted to cover up the negative findings of an inquiry that they themselves had commissioned.

The Royall report shows that students at the Oxford University Labour club who were Jewish were subjected to frequent anti-Semitism. It revealed that “There have been some incidents of anti-Semitic behaviour” and also that “some Jewish members do not feel comfortable attending the [OULC] meetings, let alone participating.” Although the Labour party had decided that there needed to be no action taken after their suppression of the Royall report, the report itself says as a consequence of what has been found, “It is appropriate for the disciplinary procedures of our Party to be invoked.”

So this is the tale of two inquiries. One inquiry, which found the Labour party to have an anti-Semitism problem, was suppressed by the Labour party. The other, which found the Labour party did not have an anti-Semitism problem, was released. The author of the suppressed report had to leak the report to the press herself. And the author of the whitewash report? Well, on Thursday of this week, in the least surprising news of the year, it was announced that the one person put forward for a peerage by the Labour party in the latest honours list is… Shami Chakrabarti.

Shami Chakrabarti, who wrote a report last month whitewashing the problem of anti-Semitism in the UK Labour party, was this week put forward by the Labour party for a seat in the House of Lords (a peerage). (Image source: Southbank Centre/Flickr)

When people wonder whether this problem will go away, here is the reason it will not: A party that suppresses the truth and elevates lies is not going to remedy its problems any time soon. A party that tries to silence those who identify anti-Semitism and rewards those who cover it up is a party where moral as well as political corruption is not an aberration, but systemic.

Douglas Murray, a British author, news analyst and commentator, is based in London, England.

The Co-operative Group is the only major British retailer to boycott Israeli goods. It is the fifth-largest retail grocery chain in the UK, with thousands of Co-op minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom. The Co-operative Group (formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society) is closely linked to — and a major funder of — the Co-operative Party, which has an electoral pact with the Labour Party, the UK’s official opposition. The Co-operative Party has, like the Labour Party itself, been infiltrated by a strong anti-Israel faction.

The Co-operative Group is the fifth-largest retail grocery chain in the UK, with thousands of Co-op minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom. Right: The Co-operative Group head office in Manchester. (Image source: Co-operative Group/Wikimedia commons)

The “co-operative movement” in England began in 1844 when a group of people in Rochdale, Lancashire decided that local stores were charging too much for food, and decided to set up a co-operative retail outlet. From there, the movement mushroomed until, at one time, it even had a flagship department store in London’s premier shopping street, Oxford Street, as well as farms, pharmacies and funeral services, to say nothing of the Co-operative Bank, its most lucrative enterprise.

The co-operative movement is also linked to the Co-operative Party, a political party with close links to the British Labour Party, a relationship that dates back to the Co-operative Congress held in 1917, which eventually led to an agreement between the Co-operative Party and the Labour Party to elect joint “Labour Co-operative” candidates. At the last general election in 2015, 21 members of parliament were elected on the Labour and Co-operative ticket.

In 2013, a scandal hit the Co-operative Bank, when it was discovered that there was a massive shortfall in funds due to corruption and mismanagement at the top. The Co-operative Group suffered a terrible financial blow, losing many millions of pounds. This resulted in an entire re-organization of the Co-operative Group, including the sale of the pharmacies and most of the Co-operative Bank (the Co-operative Group still has a 20% share but the bank has demutualized, meaning it is now mainly owned by a hedge fund and is no longer a mutual fund owned by the members).

The Co-operative Group is finally on the road to recovery thanks to new management and the policy of opening minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom, backed up by a massive TV advertising campaign. However, the boycott of Israeli produce remains.

A certain pressure group within the co-operative movement, formed in 2008, caused the Co-operative Group to boycott Israeli agricultural produce exported by the four major Israeli produce exporters. The Co-op Group has refused to stock products from Jewish communities on the West Bank since 2009, but in 2014 its board extended the boycott to the four main exporters of Israeli fresh produce — Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin — because they do not distinguish between produce from Israel within the 1949 armistice lines borders and (Arab- and Jewish-grown) produce from beyond it. This assumes that those advocating the boycott know exactly where the new borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state will be, despite that they are yet to be determined through negotiation. Ironically, most of the produce from Jewish settlements currently beyond the Green Line (the 1949 armistice lines between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) is produced by kibbutzim that were there before 1948, when the West Bank was lost in Israel’s War of Independence.

One such area is the Etzion Bloc of four kibbutzim, for which the land was purchased from its previous owners long before the British withdrew from Palestine. The Etzion Bloc will, in fact, almost certainly become part of Israel after a final settlement.

A substantial proportion of the produce marketed by Israel’s four agricultural exporters is produced by Arab farmers, operating both inside and outside the pre-1967 borders, as Israel does not discriminate between them. According to The Guardian, in April 2012, the Co-Operative Group said in a statement that it had decided to stop buying products from companies known to source from Jewish “settlements.” The decision affects contracts valued at £350,000 (about $500,000) — a practice apparently begun in 2009. Presumably it had still been doing business with Israeli pharmaceutical products; if not, according to one Co-operative Group board member, “the shelves of the pharmacy would have been bare.” Unfortunately, the Co-operative pharmacies had to be sold when the Co-op Group faced virtual ruin due to the mismanagement of the Co-op Bank’s directors.

There is, of course, no proof that the Israeli companies with which the Co-op continues to do business do not source any products from Jewish “settlements” because many Israeli businesses in the West Bank are mainly involved in manufacturing. These enterprises employ many local Arab workers, whose livelihoods are endangered by the boycott.

Although the Co-operative Group also claims to reject exports from the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, also alleged to be an illegal occupation, in practice the boycott only affects Israel, because the Western Sahara boycott is applicable only to a few tins of sardines. The Co-op Group continues to refer to Israel’s “illegal settlements” as if these and those in the Western Sahara (included “for balance” no doubt) were the only disputed territories in the world. There is no boycott, of course, of major exporting countries with appalling human rights records, such as China (invasion of Tibet), Russia (invasion of the Ukraine) and other countries whose occupation of other areas is not recognized internationally, such as Nagorno-Karabakh or Northern Cyprus. It should be remembered that in none of the above cases were the occupying countries threatened; the aggression came purely from one side, the side that was victorious This is the exact opposite of what happened in the case of Israel, but with a bloc of 58 Muslim countries in the United Nations, supported by most of the members of the European Union, might proves to be right in this case.

To set the record straight, the so-called “occupation” of the West Bank by Israel is not an occupation at all, since the territory was taken from Mandate Palestine, after it had been abandoned by the British and was occupied by the Kingdom of Jordan (then known as Transjordan), in its attempt to destroy the new State of Israel in 1948-49. Between 1948 and 1967, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan, an occupation that could indeed be said to be illegal, being recognized only by the United Kingdom (which had colluded therein) and Pakistan. This former “no man’s land” was taken by Israel during the Six-Day War against it in 1967. The massive Muslim bloc in the United Nations has ruthlessly pursued the concept of an “occupation” to divert attention from the appalling human rights abuses that their dictatorships continue to maintain in their own countries.

By no means everyone running the Co-operative Group is in favour of the boycott in fact; ironically, some of the newer members of the Group’s management even seem to be unaware of it. A recent statement made by a new member of the Members’ Board at a members’ meeting in London implied that whether or not one bought Israeli goods (presumably from the Co-op) was a mere matter of preference. As usual, of all the countries in the world, Israel is being singled out. For the boycotters of the Co-op Group, Israel is the usual soft target.

Myra Carr is based in the United Kingdom.