A new fictional number from the PLO on BDS

Palestine News Network quotes the Secretary General of the Palestine National Movement, Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, as saying that the amount of losses that hit Israel due to BDS is estimated by "economists" to be $31 billion.

This figure is being quoted all over Arab media today.

I found another quote of Barghouti saying that BDS has cost Israel $20 billion so far, with another $11 billion expected this coming year alone.

I can't find any such study. The closest I could find comes from CNN last June, which said:

Israel's economy will take a $15 billion hit from BDS and similar nonviolent resistance, largely because of the success of the movement in Europe, according to a new study from the RAND Corp. titled "The Costs of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."

The study also said the Palestinians will lose about $2.4 billion.

But Barghouti said the price is worth it.

Here's the thing: Even if that number is true (the RAND study was no longer online when I looked for it), it doesn't describe the whole picture.

In 1946, Arabs decided to boycott the Jews in Palestine. The Jews "lost money" from the boycott but used it to pivot to increase trade with Europe, more than making up for the shortfall.

And now Israel's pivot towards the largest markets in the world, in China and India, will make these supposed losses from the EU much less than they seem.

But the cost to Palestinians of BDS will not be ameliorated nearly as much.

So it seems likely that the main people being hurt by BDS will remain the people who are supposedly meant to be the beneficiaries.

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