The BDS campaign is designed to secure support for the Palestinian cause, by highlighting the wrongs of Israeli society. Friends and campaigners are asked at the very least to boycott Israeli goods made in the West Bank. And this call to action has been extended to all Israeli products, as well as to entertainers and academics.

So, what does this mean in effect? There are those who determindly buy into this line of thought. On the other hand, just recently, there have been some startling rebuttals. For example: –

• Al Jazeera noted at the end of last week that Israel is to open an official office in UAE, initially to highlight its clean energy technology. Similarly, Jordan is to extend its cooperation with Israel and will build a joint industrial zone in 2016.
• The Palestinians themselves have followed suit. The wife of President Abbas has no problem receiving top grade medical treatment in Tel Aviv. Israeli products are still readily visible in Palestinian supermarkets. And Israeli tech, such as Wix, is regularly used by BDS supporters themselves.
• Going overseas, Australia has just signed a major innovation agreement with the government in Jerusalem and with the backing of the Commonwealth Bank. UK’s Institute of Travel and Tourism has announced that it will hold its 2016 annual conference in Israel. And proven Israeli military prowess against terrorists is increasingly popular in Europe, even in Switzerland.

Just where can BDS make a successful difference against Israel? To show the way forward, last weekend, a group of protesters, dressed up as “inspectors”. They stormed into a large supermarket in Bremen, Germany, frightening customers and insisting that Israeli products be ‘correctly labeled’. A similar incident took place in the Galeria Kaufhof store in Berlin.

I can only assume that these people achieved their desired effect and thus sales on the relevant products dipped for the day. And it is almost 78 years to the day, Kristallnacht, when Nazi Germany created the same effect, demonstrating the full trust of their anti-Semitism.