Canadian cultural events, our national religious structures, our labor unions, our universities and our ability to access imported goods and services have all been targeted by a miniscule but vocal group. Their motivation springs from a core belief that all of Israel is occupied territory. They reject any Middle East solution that includes a Jewish State.

Their tool is boycott, a mechanism traditionally reserved for those regimes so odious that they merit destruction.

Now, Canadian supporters of Israel have said, simply, enough.

BUYcottIsrael, a new website launched by the Canada-Israel Committee in collaboration with Canadian Jewish Congress –Pacific Region and the Jewish Federations of Vancouver and Toronto, provides a tool to counter-boycott. The tactic is simple: to publicize calls for boycott and to respond by purchasing the targeted Israeli products. BUYcott Israel also has pages on Facebook and broadcasts through Twitter at BuyIsrael.

The website works this way: Subscribers transmit information to the website administrators when they learn that a product or event is being boycotted; website administrators rebroadcast that information out to all subscribers so that they can take action. And we’ll let our subscribers know the results.

We’ve already seen the positive impact people can have when they make a point of shopping for items targeted for boycott. Recent attempts to boycott Israeli wine in Vancouver and Toronto resulted in stocks being completely exhausted as supporters of Israel purchased every available Israeli product. Indeed, one B. C. liquor store recently responded to an announced anti-Israel picket by stocking up on Israeli wine.

In Toronto, both the recent Spotlight on Tel Aviv at the Toronto International Film Festival and the ongoing Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit have attracted enormous audiences. Canadians of diverse backgrounds have resoundingly rejected attempts to blacklist Israeli artists; they have equally refused attempts to suppress the historical evidence of the Jewish presence in the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.

And last spring, an effort to hijack the annual meeting of the Mountain Equipment Co-op failed, as hundreds of outraged members expressed their support for MEC’s ethical sourcing policy and its refusal to single out Israeli products.

We intend to continue to show the boycotters that their actions will create an effect precisely opposite to the one they seek. Israeli goods will be more prominent, Israeli academics will receive more invitations and Israeli films and museum exhibits will be more widely attended. Above all, Israel will be less, not more, isolated.

Those same voices will surely say that this new BUYcott approach shows that Israel’s supporters are worried about their calls for boycott. Already, anti-Israel groups are distributing information about the BUYcott initiative on their email list serves, suggesting that this is a sign of their own effectiveness and our panic.

They are very wrong. We’re not scared: we’re outraged. And to put it simply, we’re fed up.

Canadians, and especially Jewish Canadians, understand what lies behind this monomaniacal attack on Israel. We know what motivates this outrageous attempt to blacklist its cultural and intellectual leadership and to intimidate and demoralize its supporters.

Canadians, and especially Jewish Canadians, understand why the very people who shouted “Death to the Jews” in the streets of Toronto and Montreal just a few months ago now hide behind the symbolic skirts of a handful of people whose Jewish identity is trotted out only when it serves either their political interests or their professional ambitions.

And Canadians of every faith and ethnic origin understand why efforts to blacklist artists and intellectuals are so dangerous, so insidious and so corrupt. We know how this story ends. Always and without exception.

Canadians are tired to death of having their cherished public institutions compromised and abused by those whose single and explicit goal is Israel’s destruction.

Canadians who question and criticize Israeli policies but who nonetheless value the freedom to choose what products we purchase, what movies we see and what museums we frequent are saying, simply, enough.

Now, just a click away, we have a means to take action. Let’s be sure we do.

- Sara Saber-Freedman is executive vice president, Canada-Israel Committee.