BDS hits Brisbane
QUEENSLAND Jewish community leaders have visited a shoe shop targeted by anti-Israel protesters in Brisbane to offer their support and deliver flowers to its proprietor.
QUEENSLAND Jewish community leaders have visited a shoe shop targeted by anti-Israel protesters in Brisbane to offer their support and deliver flowers to its proprietor.
On Saturday, August 25, members of the group Justice for Palestine visited a number of shops in the Queensland capital that stock Israeli goods, including shoe shop Children of the Revolution that stocks the Israeli brand Naot, to protest against Israel’s alleged mistreatment of the Palestinians.
Children of the Revolution proprietor Sally McGregor said the protestors took over the shop before leaving a letter demanding she cease stocking the brand. “The [staff] called me in the afternoon to tell me that they did zero trade. They didn’t sell a shoe,” she said.
“We are usually really busy but the people had scared away everybody.”
She said her staff told her they had felt threatened. “I’m now working every single day because I’m scared that something might happen and I can’t have the staff worry about it,” she said. “If we knew what was going to happen next we’d probably feel a little bit more comfortable.”
McGregor, who intends to keep stocking Naot shoes, subsequently received a more pleasant visit from Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies president Jason Steinberg and State Zionist Council of Queensland acting president Tony Leverton. “[They] came and gave me flowers and they were really unhappy that it had happened to me,” she said.
Steinberg said the targeting of this store and others, including a Seacret Cosmetics shop, by BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) protesters was unacceptable to both the Jewish and wider communities.
“I think everyone’s entitled to be able to voice their views, but the moment they incite any form of racial vilification or hatred, that’s where we need to step in and call their actions to the authorities,” he said. “Similarly, going into a business and trying to prevent them from selling their goods, that’s crossing the line.”
He added that the average Queenslander just wanted to go about their shopping.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Danny Lamm said the “mafia-style tactics” of the protesters had no place in contemporary Australia. “It is outrageous that a gang of protestors barged into a shop … and then bullied the owner with threats of further harassment,” he said. “The shop owner deserves our admiration and every support for refusing to be stood over.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
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