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BUYcott Successes

Jon Haber of Divest This tells about a BDS flameout in Davis, California:

On Monday evening, the forces of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) were handed a major defeat when the Davis Food Co-op, located in Davis California, turned down demands by BDS activists to put a boycott of Israeli goods to a Co-op wide vote...

As backdrop, the Davis Food Co-op is a highly successful, member-owned cooperative with a nearly forty year history and over 9000 member-owners. Given the nature of the organization, the institution takes understandable pride in its progressive values and responsiveness to members needs, connections to the community that have contributed to its decades of success.

Sadly, it was these very qualities that made the organization a target for the local branch of the BDS movement, a movement whose two major tactics involve: (1) dressing up their mission of de-legitimization and demonization in a progressive/human-rights vocabulary; and (2) abusing the openness of organizations like the Co-op for their own narrow, political ends....

A Jerusalem Post article about a Buycott describes how one "boycott" backfired:

WASHINGTON – A call to boycott Israeli-made Ahava products in a Maryland beauty supply store backfired last week when pro- Israel activists countered by purchasing the shop’s entire Ahava inventory.

When the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington found out that the pro-Palestinian group Sabeel DC had organized a protest and boycott call at Ulta in Silver Spring last Saturday, the organization sent out an action alert urging supporters to visit the store and buy Ahava.

“They cleaned the shelves out. It was the best Ahava sales weekend the store has ever seen. They had to order an expedited shipment” afterward, said Arielle Farber, director of Israel and International Affairs for the Community Relations Council. “The greater Washington community is not going to stand for this campaign to delegitimize Israel.”

Rona Kramer, a Maryland state senator, was among those answering the Community Relations Council call. When she heard of the boycott, she though “it’s a good opportunity for the community to show its support for Israel.”

Though in the midst of a re-election campaign, Kramer pushed back her schedule to hit the store on Saturday morning. When she got there at 10:15 a.m. the store had already sold out of many Ahava lines, but she managed to tally up a $200 bill.

It was the first time she had ever bought Ahava products, a brand that uses Dead Sea minerals in hand creams, body lotions and other beauty products. “I’ve been using them since I bought them and they’re wonderful,” she said.

Faith McDonnell, another area pro-Israel activist, was moved to show up on Saturday morning because she figured many members of the Jewish community wouldn’t be able to come due to observance of Shabbat.

“There were a lot of Christians who were standing with the Jewish people and Israel on this,” McDonnell said.

In its literature announcing the event, the Sabeel DC Metro chapter that organized the action said it was held on Saturday morning to take advantage of the large crowds attending a farmers’ market held by the store.

Paul Verduin, who cocoordinated the Saturday event and was one of 12 participants, said he wasn’t disappointed by the outcome, which saw Ahava sales boosted.

“We operate under the concept of witness. We’re trying to testify to the fact that Ahava is one of the products being sold in the US claiming to be an Israeli product when it is made in the West Bank,” he said, saying that Sabeel is a nonviolent organization that seeks a “just peace” between Israelis and Palestinians.

In his letter announcing the boycott, Verduin described Ahava products as “made by West Bank settlers from natural resources stolen from the Palestinian people.”

In a statement on the subject, Ahava countered that “the mud and materials used in Ahava cosmetics products are not excavated in an occupied area. The minerals are mined in the Israeli part of the Dead Sea, which is undisputed internationally.”

Further, it states that Mitzpe Shalem, a West Bank kibbutz where Ahava products are produced, “is not an illegal settlement.”

...

The Website of the Canadian Israel Buycott group tells us:

In April of 2009, we became aware that anti-Israel groups in the Vancouver area were organizing a boycott Israel resolution for the Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) annual meeting to be held in May. Because MEC is a co-op, members can have a direct voice in this type of organizational policy.

A delegation of Buycotters attended the MEC annual meeting and helped ensure that the boycott resolution was defeated.

In April, 2009, the Toronto Jewish community became aware of a call by anti-Israel activists to boycott Israeli wines, just before Passover. The protestors intended to picket a local liquor outlet on the Sunday before the holiday.

In response, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto led the way in a Buycott drive to purchase as much Israeli wine as possible. E-mails were sent out to thousands and the pro-Israel community mobilized to counter the boycott, with their wallets and purses.

The result? Within half an hour, the liquor store at which the protestors called for a boycott was completely sold out of Israeli wine. One hundred and fifty cases were purchased in a matter of minutes, and the handful of protestors was outnumbered by well over 1,000 enthusiastic pro-Israel advocates.

A group of BUYcotters in Vancouver, led by the Canada-Israel Committee Pacific region, organized two BUYcotts that sold out local Israeli wines in 2008 and early 2009, despite the presence of picketers asking customers to boycott. There has not been an attempt to boycott Israeli wine in Vancouver since then. These actions were the genesis of the BUYcott initiative in Canada.

Following an international effort in late October 2009 that included the BUYcott initiative, the Susan Komen Foundation insisted that Egyptian authorities reverse their decision to bar Israeli researchers from a Komen-sponsored meeting in Alexandria, Egypt.

In October 2009, FIFA president Joseph Blatter received hundreds of letters asking him to continue to resist pressure to exclude the Israeli team from participation in World Cup soccer activities. Israel played the Swiss team to a tie in Basel, and the Swiss advanced to the next round.

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