Students at The Agnon School got a firsthand lesson last week in boycott politics. Parents of the Jewish day school students purchased Israeli-grown clementines at Costco to counter an effort to stop the warehouse store from selling Israeli products.
The U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, a group that opposes what it terms Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians, launched the Internet appeal targeting Costco because it sells Israeli-grown clementines.
The directive posted on the organization’s website urged sympathizers to call Costco’s produce buyers to inform them of an ongoing international boycott of Israeli products. Callers were then to refer to the hardships Palestinians endured during the attack on Gaza last year and Israel’s continuing restrictions on food, electricity and water there, the website said.
In response to the urged boycott, several Agnon parents went to Costco, purchased nearly 100 5-pound sacks of clementines at $7 a bag and resold the fruit at cost when families arrived to pick up their children after school.
Jerry Isaak-Shapiro, Agnon head of school, had e-mailed parents the day before to alert them to the plan. “Purchasing a simple bag of fruit sends a very clear message to retailers like Costco and to the Israeli farmers and distributors who depend on foreign markets for their livelihood,” he wrote.
Every single bag of Costco’s Israeli clementines sold, Isaak-Shapiro told the CJN. In fact, organizers quickly returned to Costco to buy more clementines when their initial purchase sold out.
