A recent column by Benjamin Weiner opposing the former Atlas Farm Store’s apartheid-free pledge did not discuss the apartheid-free pledge [“Store’s apartheid-free pledge alienates instead of unites,” Recorder, Nov. 25]. Why would a store take this pledge? According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, “One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group — Jews — over another — Palestinians.”
According to Amnesty International, “The discrimination, the dispossession, the repression of dissent, the killings and injuries — all are part of a system which is designed to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians. This is apartheid.”
Apartheid is an internationally designated violation of human rights, and the example of South Africa teaches us that it can be defeated through economic pressure because such pressure is painful. As Weiner’s column indicated, the process is painful indeed. Big changes so often are. I am a Jewish resident who will continue to shop at the store formerly called Atlas, now called Long River Produce Market, whose owners had the courage to condemn apartheid in Israel. Their store among the first local shops to take this stand. I suspect it will not be the last.
Mattea Kramer
Amherst