OPINION:
The word “Orwellian” was coined by George Orwell in his masterwork “1984” to describe the propaganda society, where up is down and down is up, and anyone who notices the absurdity is politically incorrect. Some people have noticed, however, that the present day resembles 1984. The Orwellians are the masters of deceit, often enforced by violence that cowers those it does not kill.
Last week a coalition of Palestinians and their supporters held a “Global Day of Action” to urge Fidelity Investments of Boston to divest its portfolios from the Internet-based rental properties firm Airbnb unless Airbnb agrees to no longer list rental properties in “illegal” Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Calling themselves the “StolenHomes Coalition,” demonstrators at a rally at Fidelity’s Boston headquarters included members of CodePink, SumofUs and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. Similar protests were held at other Fidelity offices in Dublin, where organizers delivered petitions declaring that “through earning fees from settlement vacation rentals, Airbnb is directly profiting from the continuing occupation and dispossession of Palestinians.”
Fidelity, a global financial giant with more than $5 trillion in customer assets, values its stake in Airbnb at $69.2 million. Protesters demand that Fidelity withdraw its money out of Airbnb or be blacklisted on a new United Nations database of companies complicit in Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
The database was approved in March by the U.N. Human Rights Council, a reliably pliant tool of the Palestinian war against the state of Israel. The blacklisting of companies doing business with Israel could boost the BDS movement, which encourages (or more to the point, “intimidates” and “threatens”) companies to “boycott, divest and sanction” Israeli companies — or else.
A Sodastream factory established in a West Bank industrial zone is a recent victim of the economic terror campaign. When it closed those hurt worst were the Palestinians who lost their jobs.
It’s the most recent wrinkle in the BDS movement, which began in 2005 to put pressure on Israel to give in to demands for establishment of a Palestinian state of radical Islamic specifications. The BDS movement likens Israel to unreformed South Africa, portraying Palestine as a form of apartheid. “Palestine” is a modern political concept rather than a nation, and is accorded the usual victim status by Muslim neighbor states determined to destroy the Jewish state, which is surrounded by enemies in an expanse of the Middle East that is nine-tenths of the size of the United States. Israel is just a little larger than New Jersey. Giving up land without bulletproof security guarantees, which the Palestinians refuse to give, would be another Jewish suicide.
Until the extreme elements of the Palestinians, including the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, forsake their terrorist ties and its stated goal of a Middle East without Israel, BDS and similar efforts to undermine the Israeli economy will remain as Muslim fantasy. If Fidelity gives in to Palestinian demands to divest its interest in Airbnb, it demonstrates an inability to manage its clients’ investments. Investors should make Fidelity an offer it can’t refuse: Stay the course, or take a place on an American “do not invest” list.
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