Caving in to the totalitarian Left.
I believe that it was a cowardly decision by Sainsbury, but the intent was not actually directed at the Jews (though kosher items were the only items removed from the shelves), but from fear of a massive outbreak of violence at the hands of anti-Semitic anti-Israel nut-jobs. It speaks of the age we now live in, where the rowdiest (especially from the minority portion of society) is allowed to commandeer public space at the expense of other people’s rights.
NOTE: I have no solution to Sainsbury’s dilemma, they do want to sell kosher products to its Jewish constituency (otherwise while sell them in the first place), but anti-gun laws in the UK prove detrimental to the protecting of private property and human life and livelihood.
British Supermarket Sainsbury’s Under Fire After Branch Reportedly Clears Out Kosher Section for Fear of Anti-Israel Protesters (VIDEO)
The empty kosher section at Sainsbury’s. Photo: Colin J. Appleby
Major British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has come under fire after the kosher section at one of its branches was reportedly emptied out on Saturday due to fear that anti-Israel protesters might ransack it.
The move came a day after rioters sacked a Birmingham branch of rival supermarket Tesco, throwing food products on the floor while calling for the chain to cease stocking Israeli goods.
The bare kosher section at the Sainsbury’s Holborn branch in central London was first revealed by actor Colin J. Appleby who tweeted an image of the empty shelves. Appleby claimed that a member of the store’s staff explained the incident by saying, “we support free Gaza.” The actor also pointed out that the kosher merchandise included products that were manufactured in a number of countries besides Israel.
Facebook user Gavin Platman complained directly to Sainsbury’s. “I presume you are aware that Kosher food is produced in countries other than Israel?” he wrote, according to the UK’s Daily Mail. “You are therefore not making a political statement against Israel but instead are targeting a group based on race – i.e. Jews.”
AYN RAND ON “CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE”
Civil disobedience may be justifiable, in some cases, when and if an individual disobeys a law in order to bring an issue to court, as a test case. Such an action involves respect for legality and a protest directed only at a particular law which the individual seeks an opportunity to prove to be unjust. The same is true of a group of individuals when and if the risks involved are their own.
But there is no justification, in a civilized society, for the kind of mass civil disobedience that involves the violation of the rights of others—regardless of whether the demonstrators’ goal is good or evil. The end does not justify the means. No one’s rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. Mass disobedience is an assault on the concept of rights: it is a mob’s defiance of legality as such.
The forcible occupation of another man’s property or the obstruction of a public thoroughfare is so blatant a violation of rights that an attempt to justify it becomes an abrogation of morality. An individual has no right to do a “sit-in” in the home or office of a person he disagrees with—and he does not acquire such a right by joining a gang. Rights are not a matter of numbers—and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
The only power of a mob, as against an individual, is greater muscular strength—i.e., plain, brute physical force. The attempt to solve social problems by means of physical force is what a civilized society is established to prevent. The advocates of mass civil disobedience admit that their purpose is intimidation. A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes—the physicalintimidation of some men or groups by others—loses its moral right to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow.
Politically, mass civil disobedience is appropriate only as a prelude to civil war—as the declaration of a total break with a country’s political institutions.
“The Cashing-In: The Student ‘Rebellion,’”
