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| Hmm... I thought Communists were against child exploitation! |
After the publicity concerning Amir Khadir joining the boycott of a Montreal shoe store by a motley crew of communists and the anti-Israel PAJU organization, the blowback has thoroughly defeated any attempt to make an example of the small merchant by affecting his sales volume.
Actually, I stand corrected. The demonstrators and the attached publicity has affected the small store's volume....in a positive way!
Last Saturday, demonstrators who once again tried to keep people out of the store were greeted by Montrealers determined to break the boycott.
Over 150 people showed up and bought shoes, increasing Mr. Archambault's sales volume by 500%..
This
wasn't just a reaction by Montreal's Jewish community, Richard
Martineau (columnist for Le Journal de Montreal) and his wife went to
the store to buy shoes to show solidarity against intimidation..
A typical reaction of those buying shoes was this, by a Montreal Gazette reader;
"I'm off to buy some Israeli made sandals at a store I'd never heard of before." Montreal Gazette
The success or failure of the boycott is not lost on opposing forces.
A
successful boycott would have resulted in more intimidation of merchants
on St. Denis Street, where PAJU wanted
to create an Israeli-free zone. By successfully intimidating a small merchant first, they hoped to trigger a domino effect.
After seeing the sales results, I'm sure other merchants would welcome such a boycott of their premises!!
There
was some light scuffling between demonstrates and irate customers,
with the latter no doubt looking to start something bigger. Policeman stopped by sporadically to keep the peace and to limit
demonstrators from blocking the entrance.
In
a radio interview the reporter who broke the story, Eric Duhaime, wondered how the protesters were allowed
to camp out in front of the store each week, considering that if the merchant
put a table of wares out on the street in front of his store, the
police would immediately force him to withdraw, under penalty of fine. Hmm.....
Listen in French
Curiously, no cameras or reporters were on hand to report the goings-on, not even the English media.
One would expect Radio-Canada the French CBC to avoid any story that showed Mr. Khadir in a bad light.
The vast majority of reporters working at the publicly financed network are bone fide members of the '
Clique du Plateau,' decidedly sovereignist and vehemently anti-Canadian, United States and of course, Public Enemy Number One-Israel.
On Nov. 8, Radio-Canada host Simon Durivage drew an equivalence between Israel, Iran and Sudan on the political talk show 'Le match des élus.'
Radio-Canada has since acknowledged that Durivage drew an
"inappropriate comparison" noting that "Iran and Sudan were in no way
suitable examples." Link Eng... ...See the subtitled comments on YouTub
Keep shopping!!!!
