:sl:
From what I see of boycotts they only have a short time immediate effect. The end result is the losses are passed down to the consumer so quite often the long term effect of a boycott is to hurt the very people you are trying to help.
The long term reality is it is impossible to tax or boycott a large corporation. The cost is simply passed onto the consumer.
Boycotting Israeli products may sound good, but who eventually pays the cost of the boycot. The Palestinian consumer who depends on Israeli products and the Palestinian worker who works in an Israeli factory or on an Israeli farm. The results of the boycotts seem to be unemployment for Palestinians.
When you boycott a countries products you are boycotting the businesses not the country. it would be more effective to boycott the products of a specific company not the country where the company is headquartered. By boycotting the products of a country, you may end up boycotting business owned and operated by the very people you are trying to help.
This Muslim owned business operating in Kuwait went out of business because of the Danish boycotts.
Even Muslim businesses have been victims. Kuwaiti-Danish Dairy Co. KCSC, a Kuwaiti-based and Muslim-owned company that has had no formal connection with any Danish partners for more than 20 years, has seen its sales drop 95% in Middle East markets outside Kuwait.
Source:
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2006/summer/02/