This is why Israelis couldn't buy Pepsi Cola, Toshiba computers, Toyota or Nissan cars until 1992, because those companies adhered to the boycott out of fear for losing the more lucrative Arab market.
But BDS couldn't make such a boycott work, without the support of the Arab world.
And for one other reason: BDSers themselves couldn't live for five minutes without using products from companies that have branches in Israel.
This morning I saw that AT&T opened up it second R&D center in Israel; the first was opened in 2007. It employs 600 people.
For high tech companies in Israel, that is practically nothing.
Wikipedia's page of companies with R&D facilities in Israel is a who's who of the top companies in high tech, not to mention many other industries.
Imagine BDS trying to boycott Apple, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft.
That's why they nibble around the edges, going after HP and AirBnB. Because they know that they cannot possibly adhere to a real boycott themselves, let alone demanding that others do.
This is why Israel's best defense is strength. Economic strength ensures that boycotts can't hurt it; military strength ensures that enemy states cannot hurt it, and when they realize that they can gain much more by cooperating with Israel than fighting a losing battle, that's how peace can happen.
Peace is the last thing that the BDSers want - including the ones with "peace" in their names.
