BDS is an international movement, promoted by leading Palestinians, that advocates the boycott and divestment of all things Israeli.

This week, SAIPS, a 12 person start up from Israel, was sold for US$75m to Ford. The idea is utilise the Israel tech for a machine learning solution and incorporate it in Ford’s vision for autonomous cars by 2021. In other words, SAIPS technology will be found on roads in nearly 200 countries within a decade.

Naturally, this takeover  is a major repudiation for the BDS campaign. What is significant is that it is not its only failure in the auto sector. For example, five years ago, Mobileye was barely known outside its lab in Jerusalem. A few weeks ago, it released news of its latest partnership, featuring the combined power houses of BMW and Intel.

Israel’s financial newspaper, “Calcalist”, has highlighted at least five other Israeli companies in the motor industry whose innovation capabilities have been sought out by international conglomerates.

• Nexar has raised over US10m to complete its development to allow smartphones to predict and thus to prevent accidents.
• Argus has been around for only three years. Backed by US$30m and with offices in Tokyo and Michigan, it protects a car’s computer from being hacked.
• Valens is primarily a chip maker. With partnerships with Daimler and GM, it provides the driver video info on how to make the car more efficient.
• Anagog, founded in 2012 and now with 15 employees, has won international awards for its sophisticated parking app.
• Innoviz has just completed a US$9m round to provide real-time mapping and navigation for vision systems in driverless cars .

The bottom line is that BDS cannot halt this motorcade of progress. Their own leaders will be driving such technologies in years, just as they already using Intel computers, Siemens’ products, Samsung hardware and much much more. Yup, Israel is host to all of these and hundreds more leading high-tech companies.

Which leaves you to wonder just what is the point of the BDS, which happens to be supported by leading anti-semites throughout the West. Funny thing is that Henry Ford was reported to have such tendencies.