A post-Hamsphire BDS-conference break from Divest This!

Riddle me this, readers! What might cause underwear sales to skyrocket in our French and English speaking neighbor to the north?

The answer is three simple letters: B - Doh! - S.

Perhaps I should explain. And don't worry, I'll be brief (sorry - couldn't resist).

I've talked before about Canadian BDS activity tending to focus on product boycotts, mostly consisting of a dozen or so protestors showing up to an local wine store or other retailer to demand an end to the sale of this or that Israeli product. There's often a fig leaf of claiming to only be boycotting products that are somehow involved with "The Occupation" (one more time: Bogga, Bogga, Bogga!), even though (as one commenter pointed out) BDS boycotting has extended to Sabra Hummus made in that well-known Israeli settlement of Queens, NY.

Be that as it may, product boycotts never tend to turn out well for the protestors (most notably encapsulated in the protest of a Toronto wine store that turned into a Zionist wine-buying, drinking-in-the-streets, victory party). But that's not stopped the boycotters from showing up at new venues for more of the "Thank you sir, may I have another!" treatment.

Last weekend, it was the Canadian sporting goods retailer Mountain Equipment Coop (or MEC) that got "the visit," with 12 protestors outside it's Vancouver store and another 10 outside it's Calgary store demanding the organization stop selling long underwear manufactured by the Zionist entity.

Unfortunately for them the long arm of the Yehden/Zion/Neocon conspiracy extends to long johns. In this case, the backhand came from our old friends at Buycott Israel who put out the word that Canadian friends of Israel could show their support by buying MEC supportive undergarments the following day (Sunday).

Could there possibly be better laboratory conditions to compare support for BDS vs. support for Israel in the Great White North? And the results? According to an MEC spokesperson, sales of Israeli leggings soared over the weekend, with 69% of all men's long underwear sales and 76% of all women's for the entire four week period taking place on that single day. And, as one friend calculated, running those numbers across the entire four week period means the BDS protest against dreaded Zionist undergarments led to a 2000% increase in sales.

OK, perhaps this particular calculation is hitting the BDSers below the belt (OK, I'll stop now). But I think it's safe to say that any way you slice the numbers the Battle of Underpants (like the previously mentioned Battle of Wine or the Battle of Couscous) has to go to the makers, sellers and buyers of Israeli goods, rather than the purveyors of boycott's poison.

Rumor has it that Canadian retailers are stocking up on Israeli products and praying the boycott/Buycott bandwagon comes their way. Given that every boycott protest does us the double service of massively increasing sales of Israeli products while simultaneously making the BDSers look ever more ridiculous, we can only hope the BDS brigade decides to double down on this brilliant strategy.