A new smartphone app that identifies Israeli goods and services has been attacked as a modern, high-tech version of traditional Israel-hatred.
The app — which will be released within the next few weeks — has been built by Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaigners at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
The software scans barcodes and reports on the Israeli links of the producers of goods searched.
An early screengrab of the app shows how a shopper scanning a container of Sabra Hummus is told that its Israeli manufacturer, Strauss Group, “provides financial support and supplies to the Golani and Givati brigades” — infantry units in the IDF.
Abbas Naqvi, one of the developers of the software, says that it will allow the “average Joe” to “dynamically and quickly identify products that fall within the BDS boycott guidelines”.
Simply the latest iteration of Israel-hate
Paul Charney, chairman of the Zionist Federation, said: “The new app is simply the latest, most modern iteration of the Israel-hatred that a small number of bigoted obsessives have succumbed to. No other nationality is subjected to this level of demented fixation.
“The good news is that it will actually highlight the hundreds of ways in which Israel is an indispensable part in the British economy, including the many medications that the NHS couldn’t survive without. And of course, if BDS supporters don’t want to be hypocrites, then they’ll have to boycott the app itself, since they’ll inevitably be using it on technology that’s also been developed in Israel.”
