On July 12, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee ruled that the five pro-Israel activists who sued the Olympia Food Co-op to overturn the co-op’s boycott of Israeli products must pay $160,000 in damages to the defendants in the case. Earlier this year, the judge had ruled that the lawsuit was an illegal Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. SLAPPs are nuisance suits intended to stifle free speech and create prohibitive legal costs for those who exercise free speech rights. Under Washington state law, SLAPPs are expressly forbidden.
The 16 defendants in the case are former and current OFC board members who voted for the boycott or joined the board after the boycott. Each defendant is entitled to $10,000. The OFC’s attorneys are also seeking legal fees.
Olympia Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement member Andrew Meyer said that McPhee’s award recognizes that the co-op acted within its rights to continue the boycott until Israel secures “equal, civil and human rights for Palestinians.” (Olympian, July 12)
At this time, the attorney for the Zionist plaintiffs has not announced whether they will appeal.
While the plaintiffs in the SLAPP attempted to present their case as one in which they were simply concerned with the process by which the boycott was passed, in reality the case was organized and backed by the national Zionist organization Stand With Us with direct involvement from Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor.
