Couscous and Feta

Wow!!!!! I'm really going to have to try Israeli Couscous and Pastures of Eden Feta Cheese!
I have this incredibly urge to spend money on Israeli Couscous and Pastures of Eden Feta Cheese, and it's all thanks to Yasmeen Qureishi. Thank you Yasmeen, for showing me the light!
I CAN'T WAIT TO EAT ISRAELI COUSCOUS AND PASTURES OF EDEN FETA CHEESE!!!!!!
And I'm gonna spend LOTS and LOTS of money at Trader Joe's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


See, I got this letter:

"

Hi All,

Please read the letter to Trader Joe's requesting them to de-shelve Israeli products. Email me at yfatimah@yahoo.com if you would like to sign and/or have your organization endorse it latest by June 5, 10 pm PST. We will be mailing the letter on June 6. Please forward to others who might be interested in signing too.
Everyone is encouraged to do a follow up action at a store in their area on June 20, World Refugee Day which is also being observed as National Day to De-Shelve Israeli products. Check out the event page on Facebook .
Thanks!

Yasmeen


Don Bane, Chairman and CEO
Doug Rauch, President
Charles J. Pilliter, SVP Operations
Trader Joe’s Main Headquarters
800 S. Shamrock Ave.
Monrovia , CA 91016


Dear Mr. Bane, Mr. Rauch and Mr. Pilliter,
As people of conscience, we believe that business corporations need to uphold ethical standards that are consistent with the principles of human rights and support of justice and equality, locally and globally. Trader Joe’s is a company with a reputation for bringing foods from around the world to offer U.S. customers the chance to enjoy a diversity of products. In doing so, however, we think that Trader Joe’s should not be complicit in promoting occupation, ethnic cleansing, massacres, and apartheid.

We ask that you stop carrying Israeli products or products manufactured in Israel that are distributed in the U.S. (for example, "Israeli Couscous"). We are part of a growing international movement of ordinary people from around the world, from Ireland and France to Norway and Canada , that does not want to buy consumer products that help fund an economy based on illegal occupation and apartheid. We have been dismayed to see that Trader Joe’s is still selling Israeli products, despite the international outcry against the Israeli massacre in Gaza this winter. In addition, the names of products such as "Israeli Couscous" are offensive as they allow a state that was created sixty years ago, through dispossession and illegal occupation, to claim a type of couscous that was traditionally produced by Palestinians and other Arabs for generations. This is racist advertising for cultural theft and does not befit a store that wishes to promote diversity, equality, or sustainability.


We are writing to ask you to not carry Israeli products for the following key reasons, among others:
1. Israel engages in the oppression of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people, including the continued theft of Palestinian land for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and construction of the Segregation Wall (see -- link removed -- ,
-- link removed -- , -- link removed -- for information about these violations of international law).
2. Israel has violated over 80 resolutions of the United Nations, including Resolution 194, which affirms the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and Resolution 242, which called for an immediate end to the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East
Jerusalem in 1967.
3. Israel has .......

-------------------lots of pretentious blathering removed in the interests of brevity and readability - it's pretty stupid and offensive, trust me here-------------------------------------

We know that Trader Joe’s carries Israeli Couscous and Pastures of Eden Feta cheese, both produced in Israel . However, we also believe that other products carried under Trader Joe’s private label may be repackaged Israeli products.
As conscientious people and customers of Trader Joe’s, we urge you to de-shelve Israeli products, at least until Israel meets its obligations under international law.

Sincerely,


Yasmin Qureshi, San Jose , CA
Endorsed by: South Bay Mobilization

"

Yummy! Feta and couscous! Yeah!

You know, boycotts are a crock of doodoo and trying to pressure stores to stop selling stuff is moronic. You don't want them to sell it? THEN DON'T FRIKKIN' BUY IT!!!!!
Suppose that you decided to boycott Chinese stuff (yeah, I know you can't live without cheap Chinese products, the world economy would go down the drain without them, but just suppose......!!), you know what that would do? You would end up with millions of Chinese so pissed at YOU that we would have no problem ripping your guts out. And we would STILL find a way of making a living. Without YOU having any say in it.
You would have even less influence than you already do.

You want the world to stop buying Israeli products?
THEN MAKE THE SAME THING AND COMPETE FOR PRICE AND QUALITY!
What do you guys make that anyone wants anyway? If we aren't buying your couscous, it's because of price and quality. Have you thought of making something decent? Same consistent quality, batch after batch? At a reasonable price?
Do you even make couscous?

I mean, I would maybe buy Arab food products, if they were of decent quality, and not likely to poison me. But what are your industrial food production standards like? Mediocre? Miserable? Too horrible to contemplate? Almighty frikkin bad? Twixt Toxic and Nuclear waste????

Okay, do you people make anything that I DON'T have to eat, that anybody really wants?

OIL?

That's dead dinosaurs, Yasmeen, you guys DIDN'T make it, it isn't your technology that refines it, or your tankers, and I don't see you dillwads NOT selling it to anyone. Heck, you guys sell your dead dinosaurs to the highest bidder, no matter what their politics, religion, skin color, and personal fetishes.

Of course, I don't buy oil. Or gasoline. Or anything Arabic.
I don't have a car, and I don't shop at ghetto liquor stores.


Oh and by the way, bitch, Obama got it wrong. You folks DIDN'T give the world the compass, we did! The Chinese! We invented it. Along with paper, printing, silk, tea, porcelain, distilling, Persian rugs, and Damascus steel. And tons of other stuff.
You really want to talk about "cultural theft" now, bitch?


And if you want to talk about ethnic cleansing, why are there so many of you?!?!?!?!
The Israelis did a piss-poor job decontaminating the land.
They should've followed YOUR example when you took over the middle-east thirteen centuries ago. And that is the ONLY skill you have refined since then. That, plus rape and honor-killings. Do you want to talk now about the slaughter of your own sisters and daughters?
Wanna talk about the endemic rape of foreign women working in the Arab world? Phillipinas, Indonesians, Bangladeshis and others who are brutalized by their Arab employers??????

Yeah, let's talk, bitch.
Dear Yasmeen Qureishi, I hope your dad's liquor store goes bankrupt.