Israel’s leading business publication, Globes, has a piece interviewing business leaders on the impact of the anti-boycott law. Below is an excerpt from the discussion with Bruno Landsberg, the founder of a cleaning products company called Sano, who seems affiliated with Peace Now. From the interview:
Does the boycott alarm you?
“I’m truly worried, because if they impose a boycott on certain products, after that they will boycott me too. I’m talking about a boycott overseas, which can’t be pleasant for an export-oriented country. We have to realize that we are not alone in this world. Laws won’t help. You have to understand why they are imposing a boycott, the causes of it.”
The reason is the occupation.
That’s what I’m talking about. We have to cure this by treating the cause of the boycott. I don’t like any boycott from whatever direction it comes, but this law is like a fire cupping cure for the dead. Will we pass a law about everything that’s against us? It can be enforced in Israel, but what will we do overseas?”
Peace Now director Yariv Oppenheimer believes that the new law has achieved the opposite of its intended effect, and has succeeded in rallying leftists to the cause. “The immediate result of the law,” he says, “is that now more people are boycotting products of the settlements than ever before.
“Awareness of the boycott and the perception of its legitimacy have risen. The reason for that, among other things, is people’s desire to say ‘this law is unacceptable to us.’ Not everyone who will refuse to buy products from the settlements tomorrow will do so because of this or that stance on the territories, but out of an attempt to protest against this law.”
Up to now, Peace Now has never supported a boycott.
“We have never encouraged people to buy products from the territories, but we have never taken a step such as we have taken in the past few days. Not even as individuals. I personally try not to buy products from the settlements, but I have never seen anything dramatic in that. Now, after the law has passed, I am much, much more forceful about it. Not because I think that that will stop the occupation, but because I think that that has to be the public response to laws like these.”
Has the law boomeranged?
“As far as the Israeli public is concerned, the boycott of products from the settlements has never had the legitimacy it has today. The law has created legitimacy for it among much more moderate people in Israel and around the world.”
