Activism

BDS could cost Israel $4.7 billion a year

Do you wonder why Benjamin Netanyahu is declaring war on BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), and Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are holding a secret Las Vegas conference to fight it, and Yair Lapid is saying that the people behind BDS plotted 9/11, and Ari Shavit is calling the movement “evil and sophisticated”?

Well, here’s why. The Financial Times has published a big, and somewhat balanced, article on the rapid rise of BDS that includes two stunning financial numbers showing how powerful the nonviolent movement for justice in Israel/Palestine is becoming.

The most important information is deep inside the FT article:

However, there are signs that Israel’s disquiet over BDS is genuine. This week an Israeli financial newspaper covered a leaked government report estimating that BDS could cost Israel’s economy $1.4bn a year. The estimate included lower exports from the settlements in keeping with the EU’s plans to begin labelling goods made there — not part of the BDS movement, although many Israelis lump the two things together. The Rand Corporation, the US think-tank, says the costs could be more than three times higher: $47bn over 10 years.

This is the true story of BDS. It’s having a giant impact. CNN covered that Rand study the other day — a $15 billion hit from BDS, largely because of its success in Europe — but the same day the New York Times runs a piece on the French telecom denying it supports BDS, and there’s not a word in the NY Times article about either the Rand study or the the leaked Israeli government figures. (Jodi Rudoren did write about the Rand study back on June 8, but somehow found its $47 billion cost-of-BDS estimate unworthy of mention.)  Rudoren’s slanted coverage of BDS — reporting on the Orange surrender, while leaving out the dangerous billion-dollar-numbers that created a stir in Israeli and other media — proves once again that there is no daylight between her “reporting” and Hasbara Central.

 

94 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

This is the fatal flaw with the recent anti-BDS legislation: you can’t forced people to do business with you. That is why it’s useless. All corporations care about is making money and pleasing the stockholders, and if doing business with country y or business x is costing you money you dump them. It’s nothing personal it’s just business.

Call me cynical but I see all this anti BDS legislation as planning for the next political fundraiser. Not going to work.

“Jodi Rudoren’s slanted coverage of BDS — reporting on the Orange surrender, while leaving out dangerous bilion-dollar-numbers that created a stir in Israeli and other media — proves once again that there is no daylight between her “reporting” and Hasbara Central. ”

The “Wicked Witch of The East” strikes again !!!

How can any sane Jew possibly support this Apartheid madness?

$4.7B is about 1.5% of Israeli GDP ($273B). Economies live and die, governments fall, programs go unfunded, and deficits mushroom (Israel is already running one) on 2-3% fluctuations.

No wonder they made such a fuss about the Orange announcement.

And BDS is only starting to gain traction…!!

To touch on Israel’s massive desalination initiative again, if this level of BDS effect is sustainable and/or buildable, it could have a major impact on how large and rapid that initiative becomes. The current government would potentially have to make some hard tradeoffs — water or settlements or capricious foreign adventures or massive sovereign debt or low-income housing or cutting back on the safety net or some other popular “goodies.”

Another 1% and life in Israel changes dramatically for a large portion of the population.

Great news!

BDS is having a giant impact alright, Saban/Adelson are now focusing on it single-mindedly, the attacks on the UC system and now the affair with Orange.

I think 2015 will be the year when BDS truly hit the mainstream when the history of the movement is written.

All products coming out of Israel or the occupied territories should be treated the same way as cigarettes are. Each package should have a warning something like !! , ” Use of this product is a danger to health and it should be accompanied by images of Palestinian children being beaten by Israeli soldiers or Palestinian homes being demolished or images of the massive destruction in Gaza.

A picture is worth etc etc.