Honest BDS Activist Lives Off Grid, Forages, Avoids Medicine

If you see a BDS activist using one of these, gently highlight the hypocrisy.

Somewhere near Beach Lake, Pennsylvania, February 15 – Oscar Thorpe is a rare specimen indeed: a political activist who completely practices what he preaches. In his case, his adherence to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel has led him to renounce all computer and telecommunications technology and advanced medical care.

Unlike the leaders of the BDS movement, the 42-year-old former marketing consultant does not own a mobile device, as the technology necessary to manufacture and use one depends heavily on Israeli-engineered or Israeli-produced components. The same holds true for a computer of any sort, which Thorpe cannot use because he would have to connect it to a power source, and the power company employs Israeli computing technology to deliver its product to customers.

“I used to own a Tandy, which would be great for my purposes, since it uses nothing Israeli,” said Thorpe. “But it’s both obsolete and kind of useless for trying to stay in contact.”

In contrast, Omar Barghouti, a leader of the BDS movement, earned his philosophy degree at none other than Tel Aviv University. Thorpe disdainfully points out that Barghouti specifically studied ethics.

Unable to maintain consistent communications with his colleagues in the BDS movement, Thorpe found out only this week about the international scuffle over Scarlett Johansson, Oxfam, and SodaStream, but was unable to fully grasp the details, since he has no idea what SodaStream means or who the actress is. He heard mention of the news item on his old transistor radio, which can be used and powered by blessedly Israel-free AA batteries.

“I haven’t seen the inside of a movie theater since, oh, maybe 2001,” said Thorpe. “I know what Oxfam is because they’ve been around a long time and I’ve heard of them, but ‘Scarlett Johansson’ to me is just a name. What is she, Swedish?” he wondered, unaware of Ms. Johansson’s Jewish American status. Thorpe could find out more, but the public libraries in the area – in both nearby Honesdale and slightly more distant Hawley – make heavy use of Israeli technology in the computers that manage their collections.

The New Hampshire native has fashioned a serviceable crossbow that he uses to hunt rabbit, deer, and other game, and lives in an abandoned stone hut overlooking a man-made lake. “I used to go fishing there, but then I found out there’s a Zionist summer camp on the other side, I couldn’t in good conscience benefit from their maintenance of the lake,” he explained, referring to Camp Moshava, which is run by the Tel-Aviv-headquartered religious Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva.

Despite the hardships, Thorpe eschews all medical care except for basic first aid, since Israeli pharmaceutical companies produce vast amounts of the generic drugs employed by hospitals and health clinics all over the world. “Simply making an appointment to go see a doctor would mean endorsing their use of Israeli technology in the clinic management software, or the hardware in the terminals themselves,” said Thorpe. “And forget about all the imaging technology to detect abnormalities or growths.”

Thorpe hopes his principled stand will inspire others to be more consistent in their activism. “There’s nothing I’d like to see more than all my fellow BDS advocates dying of some treatable disease,” said Thorpe.