BDS Won’t Boycott Israeli Car that Runs on Air

James Carvin – Fourth Estate Contributor
New Kensington, PA, United States (4E) – Concern over a boycott of an Israeli car that runs on air and water have proven unfounded. An Israeli company purchased the license to technology developed at Bar-Ilan University in Israel that will improve driving distance on electric cars and hybrids up to 1,000 miles with a tank full of water.
A group dedicated to boycotting Israeli products is not likely to take on the challenge because none of the manufacturing will take place in any of the occupied territories targeted by BDS movement organizations.
The trick to making the new battery work its miracle is aluminum, which Phinergy will obtain through Alcoa, Inc. in Upper Burrell, Pennsylvania. Alcoa is ready to supply 400,000 annual metric tons of aluminum to Phinergy cars, making Phinergy their fifth largest customer by 2019. Phinergy purchased the technology from Arie Zaban , an Israeli physicist at Bar-Ilan University, in 2008.
The BDS movement has advocated boycotts not only of products produced in Israeli occupied territories such as Medjoul dates, Ahava cosmetics, Eden Springs bottled water and SodaStream drink machines, but also companies that are complicit in Israeli violations of international law. These include HP, Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai and many others. As such it is a response to Israel nationally and directed at the entire state.
On its recent fundraising page, the BDS said, ‘Brand Israel’ is increasingly toxic. Israeli leaders are worried Israel is rapidly becoming a pariah state.”
But targeting brands outside of specific occupied territories just because they are associated with Israel sends a message of religious prejudice, not just a complaint about injustice, while hatred and prejudice goes two ways. Some Jews, confronted with anti-Semitism daily look down on BDS efforts that are taking their toll. Tensions are high.
“The Israeli car that runs on air and water…try boycotting this BDS scum” wrote Eliyokim Cohen, in a post Monday on Jews News.
There are reasons they won’t. It’s not just because the car is beloved by environmentalists. A boycott would be beyond the movement’s practical methodology and capability.
“It makes more sense to focus on optimal targets that are being targeted as part of national or international campaigns. Consumer boycotts are most effective when part of a broader campaign against a particular product or aiming to pressure a retailer to stop selling a particular Israeli product,” said a BDS spokesman.
BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. The movement is headed by Pro-Palestinian advocacy groups and has much support from American consumers interested in putting pressure on Israel to release occupied territories in the West Bank back to Palestinians who have the right to self-determination.
The BDS has marked its successes. Scarlet Johansson recently stepped down from Oxfam after eight years as their ambassador because she accepted an endorsement contract with SodaStream . Focus is on limited efforts like these. Currently they are gathering signatures for an appeal to the French to stop purchasing Israeli drones they say were developed with the help of “field testing” on human citizens in the Gaza strip.
Although the list of Non Government Organizations supporting the BDS movement is long, funding is limited and its first official fund raising campaign was not announced until December 12 .
Phinergy is likely to be cash strong. Alcoa, formerly AA, left the NYSE last year but its own stock price has doubled since the news of its partnership. Even the US President has paid his respects. Obama visited Zaban at Bar-Ilan in February, 2013 to praise the nanotechnology potential for metal air energy. The technology not only holds the promise of cheaper alternative fuel, but has a negative carbon footprint now that it filters carbon, a major breakthrough from the 1980s when metal-air solutions were first proposed.
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