The day was a smashing success, with scores of bags of food donated, based on what the Facebook page shows:
Who could have a problem with the idea of Zionists coming together to buy non-perishable Israeli goods, in coordination with local food banks and supermarkets, and donating them to the poor?
Well, for one, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign writing in Palestine News Network:
To counteract the widespread revulsion at Israeli massacres that has led millions to shun Israeli produce, the UK Zionist response is to exploit the misery of the homeless and the hungry to promote Israeli produce.
Many of us with a roof over our heads and enough to live on have taken a decision to boycott Israeli produce; being homeless or having to rely on food banks limits a person's or a family's options. SPSC understands that homeless shelters and food banks have a duty to accept the food in order to help their needy clients. We also know that the sort of people who dedicate their time to helping the victims of this Government's austerity drive are likely to be opposed to injustice abroad as well as at home.
SPSC asks citizens to deny any propaganda publicity to these pro-Israeli campaigners, the supporters of homelessness and hunger for Palestinians who come bearing Israeli foodstuffs. It is part of their effort to defeat the Palestinian call for BDS and their struggle for freedom. Supporting the manufacture of homelessness and hunger in Palestine; exploiting homelessness and hunger in Britain to sanitise the perpetrators, the Israeli State.
Unfortunately, at least one liberal Jew (proudly quoted by SPSC in the article just mentioned) also came out against the initiative, with a screed in the Times of Israel that included this little piece of insanity:
Nobody, as far as I am aware, has bothered to ask the food banks what they need. The general attitude seems to be, let’s dump a load of lokshen noodles on it and they should be grateful. Naftali Bennett meets Marie Antoinette: let them eat Bamba. (That is an absolute lie.)I don't see Yachad on the list of sponsors so I guess they will need to call the police for fear of being slaughtered by those evil right-wing Zionists.
...And far from making the poor self-sufficient, they are giving arbitrary Israeli produce to food banks who will find Yarden hummus about as much use as shekel coins – and that is no doubt the organisers’ next ‘charitable’ initiative.
So what is the point of IsrACTIONday? It provides an admirable opportunity to vilify opponents. The BDS movement has (ridiculously) been urging food banks to boycott donations of Israeli produce. The Friends of Israel groups immediately pounced on this as evidence that not only do anti-Israel organisations want to gas the Jews, they want to starve the poor: a smear about as undignified as it is wilfully inaccurate.
Sussex Friends of Israel is even using the day to stoke controversy within the British Jewish Zionist community, demanding aggressively of pro-Israel pro-peace group Yachad: “Are you supporting IsrACTIONday? If I don’t get a clear yes or no answer I’m going to slaughter you tomorrow!”
Sheesh.