Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Rep. Dan Goldman maintained their joint opposition of a boycott of Israeli products at the Park Slope Food Coop Wednesday — even after the collective's members passed the ban in a landslide vote.
Lander and Goldman spoke during their first joint appearance of the primary campaign season during a radio forum on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.”
Members voted to approve the boycott of less than 10 goods produced in Israel by a vote of 67%-31% during a general meeting conducted over Zoom on Tuesday night. That amendment was adopted after members passed another resolution lowering the threshold required to enact a boycott from a 75% supermajority to a simple majority.
Both Goldman and Lander had said they would have voted against the boycott — a notable instance where the candidates agree in an otherwise contentious Democratic primary.
Still, the candidates sought to differentiate themselves over their reasons for opposing the boycott, with Goldman continuing to describe it as antisemitic, and Lander objecting to that characterization.
“ When you start hearing in the debate about this kind of thing, the concept of ‘Jewish supremacism,’ which is a old, antisemitic trope used by David Duke and the Klan, then we are getting away from whatever the objective is to oppose the Israeli government,” said Goldman, who added that the vote created a division at an organization “that really has no impact on foreign policy.”
Goldman said more energy should be spent among local residents trying to work together to achieve a more peaceful future in the Middle East and to address the cost of living concerns of people in the 10th Congressional District covering Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn.
Lander rejected the idea that the vote was antisemitic, even though he reiterated that he would have voted against it.
“ Most members abhor what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, and as U.S. taxpayers, they feel complicit in genocide because Dan Goldman keeps voting to send billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Israel, and they can see that it destroyed all the schools and hospitals in Gaza,” said Lander, directly invoking his opponent’s record of voting in support of military funding for Israel.
Lander also acknowledged that the vote may leave some Jewish co-op members, who share his vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, uncomfortable in their own grocery store.
Goldman declined to answer when asked whether he would use the words, “genocide” or “apartheid” to describe Israel actions in Gaza and “population control” in the West Bank. He said what happened in Gaza was “absolutely horrific” and called the destruction a “humanitarian crisis.”
“ I think it's really important that we move away from labels and terminology, especially for legal terms, and focus on how we can arrive at a two-state peaceful solution so that everybody can live in peace there,” said Goldman. “That's where my focus has been. I think that's where all of our focus should be.”
