Holy Hummus: PS COOP Discusses Israel Boycott

The hullabaloo over hummus is back. Word on the street is the much hated/loved Park Slope Coop is having a meeting this evening amongst its members to discuss the issue of boycotting food products from Israel. According to a Tablet post by Marc Tracy, the Coop was initially going to put this issue to a vote. But after being chided with multiple comments from their readers who made it perfectly clear that it was only going to be a discussion on the matter and NOT A GODDAMN VOTE, they retracted their statement (yet still reported it as a "members-only meeting and vote scheduled next Tuesday"). The post specifically mentions how a boycott would effect its stock of hummus, to which a reader commented that all of the Coop's hummus is local.

I have to say reading the comments was far more informative entertaining than reading the post. Readers were bandying about pro-Israel/anti-Zionist speak. Food coop members sounding off on hummus. Then, just as I was starting to experience whiplash from all the ridiculous back and forth, a coop member named "Someone" tried to set the whole thing straight: 

Please! We are NOT discussing whether or not to join anything.... Allow me then: “Item #1: Discussion about conducting a membership-wide referendum on the participation…” of the PSFC in a boycott.

Sorry to bore you with the necessary facts, but a discussion about conducting a referendum has a very clear definition in our by-laws and is distinctly different from discussing “whether or not to join the boycott…" Coop procedures and rules are very careful about that, under any circumstances and under any issue.

Are we having fun yet? But wait, there's more:

'The most immediate concrete effect of the Coop’s endorsing the BDS movement…'

The use of the present tense implies that something has been endorsed already. Need I repeat myself on this count again?

I assume that Tablet is run by responsible Jews who come from a tradition of respecting the word. Yet Tracy is dodging responsibility for research into our coop’s style of democracy because he wants to join a media circus, not present printed, easily verifiable facts.

I'm not a Coop member. Nor am I Jewish, so I feel a little out of my league here on both issues.

Here's something I do know: I'm not a coop member not because of all the naysayers and people who love to poke fun at Coop members because someone needs to walk them home with their groceries. I'd love to pay bargain basement prices for organic food. I wouldn't even mind the work hours (who doesn't love working a cash register?).  I'm not a Coop member because they have too many flippin' rules and EVERYTHING sounds so complicated. I saw a woman on the subway with their "So You've Just Become A Coop Member" guidebook and it was the size of the last Harry Potter book. Who has time for that? I mean refer to quote above, "by-laws," "coop's style of democracy?" I'm pretty sure Greenland is governed with less attention to detail.   

Am I wrong?

Coop members sound off here. What's your talk on the "discussion" of the boycott and what it means to be part of the Food Coop?