"TEL AVIV -- Years of pro-Palestinian campaigning for a global boycott against Israel once found limited backing. But in the months since the war in Gaza began, support for the isolation of Israel has grown well beyond Israel's war effort.
The shift has the potential to alter Israeli careers, hurt businesses and weigh on the economy of a country of nine million people that depends on international cooperation and support for defense, commerce and scientific research.
When an ethics committee at Ghent University in Belgium recommended terminating all research collaborations with Israeli institutions in May, Israeli computational biologist Eran Segal didn't see it coming.
The sciences had seen little impact from global-boycott movements, and Segal's work had nothing to do with the Israeli military effort. The university's research collaborations, the Ghent committee noted, include research on autism, Alzheimer's disease, water purification and sustainable agriculture.
"Academic institutions develop technology for the security services that is later misused for human-rights violations," the committee wrote.
The statement was "very disturbing," said Segal, whose lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science, south of Tel Aviv, has a research partnership with Ghent University focusing on factors driving obesity. He said he doesn't yet know if the project will be terminated.
The committee also called for a Europe-wide suspension of Israel's participation in research and education programs, which often depend on European Union funding. If European partners heed the call, "this would be a tremendous blow to our ability to do academic scientific research," Segal said.
The new political and legal initiatives against Israel is unprecedented, said Eran Shamir-Borer, former head of the international-law department in the Israeli military. They include moves against Israel and its leaders at the United Nations' top court and the International Criminal Court.
"Becoming a pariah state means that even if things don't happen formally, less companies feel that they want to invest in Israel in the first place, less universities want to collaborate with Israeli institutions. Things just happen when you get this symbolic status," said Shamir-Borer, a fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
Israelis are finding their participation in cultural institutions and defense trade shows is increasingly becoming taboo.
Lidor Madmoni, chief executive of a small Israeli defense startup, prepared for months for a June international-weapons show in Paris. The conference, Eurosatory, would be a rare opportunity to expand his business, he said. Then he was told that, because of a French court decision, his firm was prohibited from attending. Organizers cited court orders after a French defense-ministry ban issued in response to Israeli military operations in Gaza.
The French decisions "shocked the entire community" of Israeli defense technology companies, said Noemie Alliel, managing director in Israel for Starburst Aerospace, an international consulting firm that develops and invests in aerospace and defense startups.
After the conference opened, a French court overturned the ban, but for Madmoni it was too late. Many Israeli companies had withdrawn.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, formed in 2005 by Palestinian civil-society organizations, has called for years for the use of international pressure on Israel to promote its goals, which include the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and winning the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to live in Israel. But the movement found limited traction.
The environment changed after Israel responded to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with around 250 hostages taken to Gaza, according to Israel.
Some longtime goals of BDS and other pro-Palestinian organizations are being realized as a result of the war, in which about 38,000 people have died in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian officials. The figure doesn't specify how many were combatants. Months of fighting, the human toll and images of devastation in Gaza have fueled international opposition to how Israel has carried out the war.
"As Israeli companies and institutions become isolated, Israel will find it more difficult to oppress Palestinians," BDS says on its website. BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti declined to comment for this article.
Israeli leaders have long criticized boycott efforts. President Isaac Herzog told an economic conference in May that Israel's enemies "are trying to isolate us in order to harm us."" [1]
Why didn't you see it coming? This movement was victorious in South Africa during apartheid time.
1. World News: Israeli Scientists, Businesses Face Boycotts --- Efforts gain traction from academia to defense, weighing on the nation's economy. Peled, Anat; Keller-Lynn, Carrie. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 10 July 2024: A.6.
