Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: South African companies boycott G4S over links to Israeli prisons [View all]shira
(30,109 posts)First, believe it or not, the BDSers have decided to get back into the divestment hoax game by declaring that simple business decisions or investment choices based on non-financial issues having nothing to do with Israel are actually successes for their movement.
This was a favorite technique the boycotters used years ago which was dropped once people caught onto them, leading to fraudulent stories related to organizations like TIAA-CREF, Blackrock and other financial firms being exposed within hours.
But recent claims that Bill Gates has turned on Israel by divesting from the security company G4S at the behest of the BDSers seems at odds with the massive investments he and Microsoft continue to make in the Israeli economy. And the existence of a perfectly reasonable explanation for Gates sale of G4S stock (that he bought it when the price was low and sold it soon afterwards when the price rose) means it is the boycotters responsibility to prove that a politically motivated divestment decision took place (by following the same guidelines used for every other divestment project in history, save theirs, described here), rather than our job to prove that it did not.
G4S was involved in a second recent hoax, this one involving the Methodist Church selling off shares in the company due to their general involvement in the management of prisons. And, once again, the BDSers were firing off their press releases declaring the Methodists to now be in their camp, despite the fact that the church has explicitly said their decision had nothing to do with Israel.
While Ive come to believe that many BDS hoaxes are designed to fuel the Israel haters delusions of potency and effectiveness (even at the cost of being exposed as liars to those who do not share their fantasies), the obvious political motivation for pushing fraudulent stories about the Methodists onto the front pages now is to influence upcoming PCUSA votes via lies that say The Methodists have joined our movement and so should you!
http://divestthis.com/2014/06/pcusa-return-bds-hoax.html