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.