I am writing to express my admiration of the sheer bravery on display by the people protesting at River Valley Co-op to demand that they remove a handful of Israeli products from the shelves [“Pushing for an ‘apartheid-free’ store,” Aug. 27].

These courageous activists, many of them young adults bravely wearing masks outdoors, signaled their virtue to a level that many could only aspire. They even took on the endeavor of establishing an entirely new organization to push their cause, the “Campaign for an Apartheid-Free River Valley Co-op.”

These valiant activists know that their time and efforts are much better spent on getting ice cream cones and couscous off the shelves at a supermarket than on spending that time protesting the fact that just five days earlier, our government approved a $20 billion arms sale to Israel. Fighting a courageous campaign to prevent customers from buying the sesame tahini they want to eat is way more important than the fact that since Oct. 7, our government has given Israel over 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, thousands of Hellfire missiles, and last month, resumed sending 500-pound bombs.

According to an Aug. 27 article that appeared on the Democracy Now! website, that’s over 500 transport planes and 100 ships full of weapons, delivered to Israel by the United States to conduct their indiscriminate military campaign against the people of Gaza. To stay consistent with the activists’ principles, I propose a boycott of all food originating in the United States. River Valley Co-op needs to remove all of the locally grown fruits and vegetables from their shelves immediately. It would only be just.

So thank you, grocery store protesters, for having the courage, sound priorities, and sense of self-awareness to speak out against Israeli ice cream cones. Keep up the good work!

Brian Cooper

Sunderland