An empty boycott - Daniel Siryoti

by Daniel Siryoti

Both the vendors and the consumers in the Palestinian Authority assume that the boycott will not be very strictly enforced, if at all. They know that at best, a black market will develop whereby the boycotted products will be sold "under the table" at all the stores only without tax, and at worst, the Palestinian consumers will have to venture out just beyond the Green Line to the Israeli operated stores to purchase said items.

At the beginning of last week, a commerce committee in the Palestinian Authority -- comprised of representatives from Fatah alongside other groups -- announced a boycott of six leading Israeli food and beverage companies in response to Israel's decision to freeze Palestinian tax revenue. 

The products manufactured by these companies are sold in grocery stores and marketplaces across the Palestinian Authority. The committee has informed the Palestinian vendors in advance before the boycott went into effect last Wednesday. The committee prohibited the vendors from selling products manufactured by the boycotted companies, and instructed them to sell off whatever products were already in stock within two weeks. 

No presidential order was issued on this decision, as is normally customary with such actions, but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' bureau in Ramallah did issue a statement declaring that the committee "has President Mahmoud Abbas' full support." 

There was good reason for the absence of a presidential order -- violation of a presidential order is a very serious offense in the Palestinian Authority, which comes with very heavy penalties. If the decision had been made by presidential order it would have made thousands of Palestinian vendors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Palestinian consumers, vulnerable to criminal prosecution. 

Both the vendors and the consumers in the Palestinian Authority assume that the boycott will not be very strictly enforced, if at all. They know that at best, a black market will develop whereby the boycotted products will be sold "under the table" at all the stores only without tax, and at worst, the Palestinian consumers will have to venture out just beyond the Green Line to the Israeli operated stores to purchase said items. 

The vendors and grocers and store owners in the Palestinian Authority have a clear preference for Israeli food products over the comparable items imported from Jordan, Egypt and Turkey, as do the Palestinian consumers. Though the products imported from Arab states and Turkey are far cheaper than the Israeli products, the Palestinian consumers still prefer Elite coffee, Osem snacks and Tnuva cottage cheese. The Turkish and Arab products gather dust on the shelves while the Israeli products can't be restocked fast enough.

The general assumption among Palestinian Authority vendors and consumers is that the decision to boycott Israeli products was merely declarative, and not actually operational. The announcement was meant only to exert pressure on Israel to unfreeze the tax money -- totaling approximately half a million shekels per month. Indeed, several days after the boycott went into effect, Abbas' bureau announced that the Palestinian Authority would lift the boycott if Israel unfreezes the tax funds. On the Palestinian street, this kind of move would be referred to in Arabic as kalam fadi -- empty words.

Daniel Siryoti

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=11595

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