Ineffective Arab boycott update

A four day meeting of 14 Arab League states that pretend to enforce an economic boycott of Israel just ended, in Damascus.

So-called US allies Iraq and Saudi Arabia are among the countries represented at the conference, despite US pressure on the two countries to end their enforcement of the boycott, which bans business with Israel or business in Israeli-made goods.

Saudi Arabia continues to uphold the Israel boycott in blatant violation of an agreement made with the United States in November 2005, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"The Arab boycott of Israel will remain an influential tool and strong backer of the Palestinian people until the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital and the restoration of all the occupied Arab territories," Muhammad al-Ajami, director of the Syrian Office for the Boycott of Israel, said to the official Syrian news agency SANA.

Among the countries represented at the conference are Syria, Sudan, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Libya, Lebanon, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Yemen. Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel, are not participating in the meeting.

Isn't it strange that the PA, which is so heavily dependent on Israeli goods, says that it enforces this boycott?

Even Arabs know that the boycott is a joke:

The Arabs set up an organization decades ago to boycott Israel to isolate the Jewish state, but the effectiveness of the boycott dwindles by the year.

Sources close to a four-day meeting that opened in Damascus Monday are describing the conference's agenda as "ridiculous" in the wake of pressure on Arabs to abandon "the weapon of the boycott."

The sources told United Press International on condition of anonymity the "absurdity" of the agenda was a reflection of the pressures placed on the Arab countries by Western powers led by the United States.

"The participating Arab countries in the conference are like someone drowning and trying to prove he is still alive, especially after previous meetings have failed in imposing a ban on multinational firms" dealing with Israel, one source said.

Which begs the question: if the boycott doesn't hurt Israel, and in fact if Israeli goods continue to be sent to Arab countries directly or indirectly despite the boycott, why do they keep the fiction going?

The answer is simply that to admit it is a failure would be a disgrace and these macho nations cannot bear to look like they have capitulated. Honor yet again trumps true self-interest in the Arab world.

UPDATE: Once again, those Likudnik Zionist neo-cons show how cunning they are, by encouraging their puppet Iraq government to join the Zionist boycott and thereby redirecting suspicion away from themselves - since we all know that the entire invasion was a Zionist plot.