Boycott movement (illustration)
Boycott movement (illustration)Reuters

The University of Denver’s branch of Students for Justice in Palestine decided to build a new website in order to disseminate its call for a boycott of Israel.

However, the creators of the website failed to realize that the company they used to build the site, Wix, is an Israeli company that provides a free platform for web development.

Another website, Israellycool.com, noticed the ironic BDS fail and reported about it, before the Students for Justice in Palestine website was taken down to be replaced with an error message.

Two years ago, the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland (ZF) discovered that “pro-Palestinian” activists who promote the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement against Israel used Wix to create their websites.

ZF pointed out two websites run by anti-Israel groups which used Israeli technology: The website of the Cornell University branch of “Students for Justice in Palestine”, and the “Palestinian Holocaust Museum” website, which presumably is opposed to any recognition of Israel since it promotes the baseless assertion that Zionists have committed genocide against Palestinian Arabs.

Activists who call to boycott Israel or Israeli products are often reminded that if they truly wanted to boycott Israel they would have to avoid using a whole slew of technologies invented by Israelis.

In 2011, when a woman in South African called for a boycott of a local pharmacy chain because it sold Dead Sea products made in Israel, the chain’s CEO responded with the following:

“[I]f it is your intention to boycott Israeli products, you need to be consistent if your gesture is to have any meaning. I hope you don’t use an Intel chip in your computer with which you probably wrote your e-mail because it was invented in Israel.

“I hope that you stay in good health because if you need preventative surgery against a heart attack, you will have to boycott the procedure because guess what? The stent was invented in Israel!

“Likewise, I hope you are never prescribed any patch for diabetes, to deliver medication and other drugs. If you are an asthmatic you may have to use a new type of inhaler (Spin) invented in Israel. So please check!

“Israel has given the world the system of drip irrigation which is being widely adopted in SA with water shortages like many countries. Should you boycott all fruit and vegetables grown by this method? The list that Israel has given the world is very lengthy. Check very carefully what you boycott.”