A boycott of goods made in the settlements within the West Bank is largely symbolic.  After months of conversation and debate, few can name a product that the United Church might boycott.  So it is symbolic.

Symbolic actions, however, cut both ways.  We take a symbolic action but we cannot ignore the symbolic context to such an action.  An example, a world away from Israel-Palestine: The Fort McKay, Mikisew Cree and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations together make half a billion dollars a year on the Alberta oil sands.  They are engaged in heavy hauling, logistics, and laboratory work, employing hundreds of First Nations people.  

Would we, the church that is so vehemently opposed to the oil sands, call for a boycott of these First Nations, or the products and services they deliver?  Of course not.  We would consider the context of the United Church relationship to First Nations, the optics of such a move, and the foundation of trust that we have worked so hard to create.  We simply would not do it.  

The audience for our selective boycott of Israeli goods is not the State of Israel.  The audience is domestic, the government of Canada (perhaps) and the 375,000 Jewish-Canadians who might reconsider some aspect of their support for Israel.  However, with any symbolic action, the intended meaning of our action may be lost in the way the story is told.  Any time a Christian Church condemns the activity of a group of Jews, 2000 years of history comes into play.

In other words, the decades that the United Church has spent trying to undo the damage of Christian anti-Judaism could unravel overnight.  The troubled history between Christians and Jews--which began as early as the time the Gospels were written--requires constant mindfulness, so that we will never again be accused of being anti-Judaic.  

It seems there is still time to reconsider our actions with regard to a boycott.  My God bless our Commissioners as they undertake this important decision.