BOYCOTTS AND DIVESTMENTS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: VICTOR SHARPE
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Boycotts and Divestments have Consequences
The latest weapon employed by Israel bashers is the boycott. It is a device being considered by a host of groups and organizations to selectively end all investments in companies doing business with Israel and to boycott stores and retail outlets selling Israeli products. It is known as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign (BDS). Their inspiration comes from the decade’s old failed boycott of Israel by the Arab League.
Within the last week, I was asked to prepare a one page flyer to be used in Port Townsend, Washington State, to combat an anti-Israel boycott resolution initiated by two leftist and radical members of a Food Co-Operative. The flyer was derived from an earlier article I had published defending Israel against the usual false charges and libels heaped upon the embattled Jewish state.
Several hundred copies of the flyer were distributed among the four hundred or so members who attended the board meeting. Fortunately the message in the flyer succeeded in beating back the anti-Israel resolution: A small victory in an ongoing war, yet the same miscreants who proposed the boycott in Port Townsend threaten to attempt the same boycott in the Spokane, Washington, Co-Op.
Several years earlier, a resolution to divest investments in Israeli companies was submitted by the leadership of the Presbyterian Church at its 216th General Assembly. Among the reasons the Presbyterian leadership gave for boycotting the Jewish State at that time was Israel’s security fence, which it compared to the Berlin Wall.
Of course, the Communist regime in East Germany erected their wall to trap its citizens and suppress their freedom of movement. Sadly what those who formed a relatively small but influential committee within the Church omitted to explain to the general membership was that the purpose of Israel’s security fence was, and is, to protect its citizens from attacks by Palestinian Muslim terrorists. Nor did they choose to echo Israel’s stated aim, which is that the security fence would go once Palestinian terror permanently ended. Sadly, a vain hope.
The Church’s divestment campaign, aimed solely against Israel (not against states that routinely persecute Christians and disseminate crude anti-Jewish propaganda, such as Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or the Palestinian Authority itself) had consequences damaging to Jewish-Christian relations, to the integrity of the Presbyterian Church, and upon the influence it had. It emboldened the Episcopal Church and the World Council of Churches to also plan divestment from Israel. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed and the clique within the Presbyterian Church was eventually voted down. Yet the danger still remains.
If members of the liberal churches decide to fall in line with the boycott against Israel – joining the leftist constellation of so-called “peace” and “justice” groups that proliferate among the universities and colleges – they should at least have the courage of their convictions and begin by throwing away their computers. Why?
Well most of Window’s operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel. The Pentium NMX Chip technology was designed at Intel in Israel. The Pentium 4 microprocessor, the Centrium, and Core processors were entirely or in part designed and developed in Israel.
Those boycotting Israeli products had better take note that Microsoft and Cisco built their only R & D facilities outside of the U.S. in Israel. Voice mail technology was developed in Israel; so was the technology for the AOL Instant Messenger (ICQ). And horror upon horror, the cell phone was an Israeli invention.
But these are only technologies. Perhaps divestment and boycott supporters should check their personal medications. They should refuse any products made by Teva or Abic. They will have to suffer from colds and flu this coming winter and purchase more expensive cholesterol lowering drugs; but that’s a small price to pay for their campaign against Israel.
Trouble is, those wretched Israelis have also developed a simple blood test that distinguishes between mild and more severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
So if all who embrace divestment from Israel and boycott Israeli products in the stores know of any family or friends suffering from MS or Parkinson’s, tell them to ignore the Israeli patents that may more accurately diagnose their symptoms and bring relief.
If they have, or know of, young children with breathing problems, tell them that the anti-Israel boycott will not allow them to accept another medical breakthrough – the Child Hood. Although it replaces the inhalation mask with an improved drug delivery system that provides relief for child and parent, it must remain unacceptable because the Israelis invented it.
If a boycotter has a family member who is a stroke victim and who is severely disabled and unable to move their bodies or communicate, do not tell the patient that an Israeli device provides the ability to write an e-mail, to communicate and steer a wheelchair by sniffing.
The revolutionary device identifies changes in air pressure inside the nostrils and translates these into electrical signals, which can then be used either to write messages or to move a wheelchair. But dear boycotter, please don’t tell a soul, especially a suffering soul.
Oh, and if the divestment freak knows someone who has paralyzed hands, he or she better not mention yet another Israeli made device, which electronically stimulates hand muscles and provides hope to millions of stroke sufferers and victims of spinal injuries.
Those wicked Israelis have also tried to help women who undergo hysterectomies each year for the treatment of uterine fibroids. Israel’s ExAblate 2000 System is a welcome breakthrough, but keep it quite – better to divest and boycott, isn’t it?
In fact, Parkinson’s disease patients can also benefit from deep brain stimulation techniques, developed through the Movement Disorder Surgery program at Israel’s Hadassah Medical Center, which eliminates the physical manifestations of the disease.
But, again, keep that quite too as it would be hypocritical for liberal church members and loony leftists to benefit at the same time they are divesting from Israel or boycotting its products.
So due to their divestment campaign and boycotts, they will have poor health, no computers or cell phones. After all, those technologies were developed in Israel of all places.
Of course, the boycotters could suggest to retailers, hospitals, and pharmacies that they replace on their shelves the nasty Israeli products with those manufactured in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. A few such Arab products come to mind: Qassam missiles, exploding suicide belts, and racist, anti-Semitic ‘literature’ that will bring joy to the hearts and minds of every neo-Nazi.
Now reflect on the massive contribution Israel is making to all the peoples of the world – including the Palestinian Arabs – in medicine, science, agriculture, security and communications.
Not bad for an embattled people living in a tiny country no larger than Wales or New Jersey.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer, contributing editor, and author of Volumes One and Two of “Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.”
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