Despite promises to stop adhering to aspects of the Arab boycott of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations have stepped up some of their boycott activity, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
At the end of September, the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia, vowed to stop complying with the secondary and tertiary boycotts of Israel.
The secondary boycott blacklists companies that do business in Israel. The tertiary boycott bars companies from doing business with other companies that do business in Israel.
From October to December, however, Saudi companies filed a total of 399 boycott-related requests of U.S. companies, compared to 365 the previous three months, according to figures released recently by the Commerce Department.
The five other Gulf council countries are Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.
Although overall activity among the Gulf countries declined in the most recent period, the number of boycott-related requests that mostly blatantly violate anti-boycott legislation increased.
These request, known as prohibited requests, actually ask companies to do things that would violate the anti-boycott regulation, such as demanding that a company not use a blacklisted firm.
The Commerce Department’s Office of Anti-Boycott Compliance issues a quarterly report to gauge what Arab countries are doing with respect to the boycott.
The Commerce Department said the figures were not surprising.
“On the whole, performance has improved,” said William Skidmore, director of the anti-boycott office.
“This is not reflected in the quarterly reports of the boycott requests, because as far as we can tell, the implementation of these policies has been slow and incomplete,” he said.
Although the Arab countries have implemented new policies regarding the boycott, it is difficult and takes time to implement the practice among bureaucrats and business people, Skidmore said.
Skidmore said despite the boycott, it is still easier for American companies to do business with Arab nations than it was five years ago.
He said that in contrast to the past, some Arab companies might now amend their request, dropping specific demands and moving ahead with their business deals.
But anti-boycott activists expressed disappointment in the latest figures.
“Now is the time for the Arabs to put their money where their mouth is,” said U.S. Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“If they’re serious about ending the boycott, their numbers have to go down,” said Schumer, who co-chairs the Congressional Task Force to End the Arab Boycott.
Jess Hordes, Washington representative of the Anti-Defamation League, said, “There still is no clear, obvious downward trend. We would like to see reflected in the statistics a much sharper drop” in requests.
He added” “That’s where you get the validation of rhetoric.”
Hordes and Schumer both said they though that enough time has passed since the Gulf countries made their announcement to expect a change in requests.
Hordes acknowledged that policy changes take time, but he said it is still “reasonable” to expect a drop in boycott activity.
“We should have begun to see changes,” he said.
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