The U.S. ambassador to Israel said Washington will “vigorously oppose and counter” the “pernicious” Palestinian-led campaign to boycott Israel, The Times of Israel reported Wednesday.
Ambassador Dan Shapiro, who was addressing the 16th annual Herzliya Conference, added that “no one should have any doubt that the policy of the U.S. government” is to fight the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign. He said that having been targeted by the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s, the U.S. understands what it’s like to be subject to economic attack, and pointed out that the U.S. sided with Israel then, too.
Right now, “others may advocate boycotting Israel — but we are doing the exact opposite,” Shapiro said. “We are actively seeking to deepen our economic partnership with Israel. We encourage American companies to invest in Israel, and then celebrate their successes. We are recruiting Israeli businesses to invest in the United States.”
The ambassador also called for progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which could undermine of the appeal of the BDS campaign. While he acknowledged that “True supporters of BDS have an anti-Israel, and in some cases even anti-Semitic, agenda, independent of efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he added that “we must also reach those who support a two-state solution, but who might be tempted by the misguided arguments of the BDS movement.”
The Palestinians rejected an opportunity to negotiate directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month. No peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have taken place since Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas torpedoed U.S.-sponsored talks two years ago by refusing to compromise on any issue deemed substantive by Washington.
Shapiro addressed many aspects of Israel’s economy and the mutually beneficial economic cooperation between the two nations during his speech. A complete transcript is available here.
In Israel Gives Much More to the U.S. Economy Than You Imagined, which was published in the March 2016 issue of The Tower Magazine, Aaron Menenberg analyzed the benefits of Israeli trade with the U.S., and concluded:
All things considered, one would be hard-pressed to find an alliance more effective than the one between the United States and Israel. The Jewish state is a small country in population and size, but the benefits America realizes from its trade and collaboration with Israel are often comparable to much larger and wealthier nations, and in some cases may even exceed them. From individual states to the national economy, Israel’s impact is outsized: Hundreds of thousands of jobs, technological improvements, and science and healthcare advances that boost our material and physical quality of life.
Looked at this way, it becomes easy to see that the BDS movement’s attack on Israel’s economy, not to mention its encouragement of academic and scientific boycotts, directly hurts Americans. Just as the movement claims to be helping the Palestinians, but in fact harms Palestinian interests, it also harms what is perhaps America’s most important interest: its economic success. Regardless of your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if you support a stronger American economy and workforce, you should oppose boycotting Israel. It is important for Americans to know this, and for the anti-boycott effort to expand to include them.
[Photo: HerzliyaConference / YouTube ]