Arab World: "We'll Take Your Jewish Stuff, Just Please Don't Remind Us of How Jewish You Are"
While the Arab Boycott of the Jewish State is collapsing, Jew hating is still in vogue. Or as the Jerusalem Post says, the Arab boycott is now just lip service:
The Arab boycott, established by the Arab League in 1951 as an economic tool to hurt Israel, is a dying animal. Ask Aramex. The company, which provides delivery services around the world, is commonly used by Arab and Israeli companies who want to exchange goods without upsetting any Arab port officials. The company provides customers with US mailing addresses where Israeli products can be sent. It then exchanges the Israeli postalstamped packaging for a US-stamped package and sends it on to its Arab destination.
So while some Arab ports will not accept goods marked "Made in Israel," if you take off the sticker and send it through another country, the deal is done. "Besides Syria, the Arab boycott is now just lip service," said Doron Peskin, head of research at InfoProd, a consulting firm for foreign and Israeli companies specializing in trade to Arab states... "Today the Arab boycott is all bark and no bite," said Danny Halperin, who founded and headed the Israeli Authority Against Economic Warfare (IAAEW). "We succeeded."
So the Arab world still gets the daily, psychological rush of their vicious anti-Semitic hatred without any of the costs that could be incurred by their rejectionism. That's nice. And that's what we're calling success nowadays. Awesome. So is this a good strategy? Turns out, not so much:
Yet while few Muslim states (Syria, Lebanon and Iran) remain hard-core adherents to the ban, the Arab consumer as a whole remains loyal to it and Arab businessmen say that only a comprehensive peace process will change that. Peskin said it's a "psychological" barrier. "We didn't get to the point where a consumer in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait will feel comfortable opening and using product labeled 'Made in Israel.'"
We're skeptical that a "comprehensive peace deal" will make the the average Arab and Muslim consumer feel more comfortable touching all those "Jewish" products. The kind of pathological anti-Semitism that would cause someone not to drink a beverage because Jews touching it made it dirty is obviously so irrational as to be beyond being effected by argument.
The Arab boycott, established by the Arab League in 1951 as an economic tool to hurt Israel, is a dying animal. Ask Aramex. The company, which provides delivery services around the world, is commonly used by Arab and Israeli companies who want to exchange goods without upsetting any Arab port officials. The company provides customers with US mailing addresses where Israeli products can be sent. It then exchanges the Israeli postalstamped packaging for a US-stamped package and sends it on to its Arab destination.
So while some Arab ports will not accept goods marked "Made in Israel," if you take off the sticker and send it through another country, the deal is done. "Besides Syria, the Arab boycott is now just lip service," said Doron Peskin, head of research at InfoProd, a consulting firm for foreign and Israeli companies specializing in trade to Arab states... "Today the Arab boycott is all bark and no bite," said Danny Halperin, who founded and headed the Israeli Authority Against Economic Warfare (IAAEW). "We succeeded."
So the Arab world still gets the daily, psychological rush of their vicious anti-Semitic hatred without any of the costs that could be incurred by their rejectionism. That's nice. And that's what we're calling success nowadays. Awesome. So is this a good strategy? Turns out, not so much:
Yet while few Muslim states (Syria, Lebanon and Iran) remain hard-core adherents to the ban, the Arab consumer as a whole remains loyal to it and Arab businessmen say that only a comprehensive peace process will change that. Peskin said it's a "psychological" barrier. "We didn't get to the point where a consumer in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait will feel comfortable opening and using product labeled 'Made in Israel.'"
We're skeptical that a "comprehensive peace deal" will make the the average Arab and Muslim consumer feel more comfortable touching all those "Jewish" products. The kind of pathological anti-Semitism that would cause someone not to drink a beverage because Jews touching it made it dirty is obviously so irrational as to be beyond being effected by argument.
