Pressure rises on Co-op board to follow through on boycott of Israeli products

The Co-op’s annual general meeting on 17 May announced that about 73% of the supermarket’s 6.5 million members had voted to stop the sale of Israeli products. The motion is non-binding, but the Co-op’s board says it will consider the vote during its summer sourcing review. Pro-Israel lobbyists have predictably been making noise, but there have also been calls for increasing pressure on the board to respect the vote.

Co-op: BDS Israel now

A petition on Avaaz calling on the Co-op’s board to follow through on the members’ motion already has over 30,000 signatures. Amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the petition says, the apartheid state’s “economy – and its ability to carry out these massacres – is dependent on the revenue from exports, many of which are produced in illegal settlements in the West Bank”. It highlights that “bans and embargoes on South African produce were pivotal in isolating and weakening Apartheid” in the 1980s. And for that reason, boycotting Israel now matters too.

Stressing that “the vote was non-binding, and the board will be under intense pressure to ignore it”, the petition insists:

That’s where we come in. Will you sign the open letter to Co-op bosses, celebrating the vote and urging them to implement it in full?

The message to Co-op board members says:

The Co-op has a long and proud history of doing the right thing: making ethical decisions in the produce they stock and sell. The vote to ban Israeli produce is just another example of Co-op members standing for peace and justice. Now, the board must follow through and implement it in full.

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/co_op_israel_ban_loc/

No more hypocrisy! No more genocide-stained products!

The Co-op motion referred back to how the supermarket responded almost immediately to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine by removing Russian products. And it stated:

We urge the board to show moral courage and leadership, apply the same ethical principles and values it did to Russia, and take all Israeli products off the shelves

On average, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least one Palestinian child every hour in Gaza since their genocide began in October 2023. In total, they have murdered around 17,492 children. That number includes about 825 babies, 895 one-year-olds, 3,266 preschoolers, and 4,032 six-to-10-year-olds. And as Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon of war, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned this week that “there are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them”.

After 19 months of genocide, the Co-op decision to remove Israeli products would be long overdue.

The Co-op board has said the motion is merely “advisory”.

It must enforce the motion now in recognition of its profound responsibility not to be complicit in Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid. (6/6)

— Palestine Solidarity Campaign (@PSCupdates) May 17, 2025

Bravo to Co Op members, they’ve made their views clear, now the Co Op itself needs to act – by removing all Israeli products from their stores. Don’t call this ‘just an advisory vote’ and try wriggle out of it. https://t.co/oNkJmpK9gw pic.twitter.com/q54bZ1Kxpp

— Dale Vince (@DaleVince) May 20, 2025

Featured image via PSC