Boycott madness

Another week, another example of Israeli scientific genius. But the extraordinary trial of a treatment for MS at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital is notable not simply as a potential medical breakthrough, wonderful though that is. It is also the perfect demonstration of the sheer stupidity of the BDS campaign. The lead professor is a Christian, another doctor is a Muslim and a further specialist is the sister of a settler: a cosmopolitan mix, in other words. That should all be irrelevant, since they are not engaged in politics but medicine. But since the BDS brigade seek to politicise anything related to Israel, their varied backgrounds and united ambition — to cure MS — stand as the perfect riposte. BDS has, however, never been about rationality and facts. It is based on racism and hate, singling out the world’s only Jewish state for ostracism. But for all the hot air of the BDS advocates, it has been and will continue to be  a failure. And for MS sufferers across the planet, that is good news.

Not so brilliant

So much for the idea that Jews are brilliant at business. If, that is, The Apprentice is anything to go by. This week Charles Burns became the latest candidate to be fired — and thus the latest Jew to be ignominiously sent packing by Lord Sugar. In 14 series, not once have we come within so much as a sniff of providing a winner. We have come nearer to winning Bake Off  — which may, of course, confirm a further stereotype...