The PA's disingenuous boycott campaign

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 May 2010 Salam Fayyad throws products made in Israeli settlements into a fire in the occupied West Bank. (Mustafa Abu Dayeh/MaanImages) In recent weeks, the US- and Israeli-backed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has made a show of calling on Palestinians to boycott goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Despite the rhetoric of defiance and resistance, and exaggerated screams of anguish from Israeli settler groups, the PA effort actually appears designed to co-opt, undermine and abort the much broader Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and to reassure Israel of the continued docility and collaboration of its puppet regime in Ramallah.