The Olympia Food Co‐op Boycott: Nonviolent Struggle versus Conflict Resolution Process

Abstract

Th is article examines the contention caused by a decision in 2010 of the board of the Olympia Food Co-op to boycott allIsraeli products from the co-op. Th e hometown of Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-yearold Evergreen University student who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while defending a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip, Olympia has a unique culture of social activism. However, as the case illustrates, community members diff ered in their conceptualization of what it means to be "progressive" on the subject of Israel and Palestine. Drawing on interviews and document analysis, the article argues that the polarization surrounding the co-op's boycott refl ects broader tensions within the fi eld of confl ict studies, including those between advocates of nonviolent resistance and dialogue, proponents of process versus those of outcome, and those arguing for neutrality versus solidarity with the oppressed. Th e article also explores the role of competing and overlapping identity categories in how activists framed their position on the issues under contention. B oard members from the Olympia Food Co-op (OFC) in W ashingtonState agreed on July 15, 2010, to boycott Israeli-made products in their two grocery stores. With that action, it became the fi rst US grocery store to remove Israeli goods from its shelves (OFC 2010b). AlthoughTh e data collected for this article are part of a broader project described in Transnational Activism and the Israeli-Palestinian Confl ict, by M. C. Hallward (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). A more extended discussion of the Olympia Food Co-op boycott can be found in that book.

Nonviolent Conflict Escalation

“…Numerous social movements have developed forms of nonviolent action in struggles for civil and political rights, disarmament, environmental protection, recognition of minorities, independence, and animal rights, for example. The literature on nonviolence includes case descriptions of particular struggles combined with theories or strategic discussion (Ackerman and DuVall 2000 ; Ackerman and Kruegler 1994 ; Bartkowski 2013 ; Clark 2009 ; Paulson 2005 ; Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher 1999 ), something that has also been covered by this journal (Hallward and Berg 2014 ). Recently studies of nonviolence have focused on how unarmed popular uprisings have brought down dictatorships (Celestino and Gleditsch 2013 ; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011 ; Dudouet 2013 ; Markoff 2013 ; Nepstad 2011 ; Schock 2005 ; Stephan 2009 ).…”