COMMENT | A young Malay grab rider who routinely communicates with me texted me recently, worried that the threat of boycotts would affect his livelihood.

He wanted to know who these people calling for boycotts on social media were and wondered if they were rich people because only rich people could care about something happening so far away.

I told him nothing would come of these boycotts because, eventually, whatever homegrown economic issues would trump the fervour of the political class to gain mileage from the Palestinian issue. Not in those words, of course, but close enough.

Who are these people calling for boycotts, anyway? To the best of my knowledge, nobody from...