The American Wall Street Journal said that the months following the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip showed increasing support for isolating Israel.

The newspaper said: “This shift may lead to changing Israeli courses of action, harming businesses, and burdening the economy of a country with a population of nine million people that depends on international cooperation and support for defense, trade, and scientific research.”

The newspaper quoted former head of the international law department in the Israeli army, Eran Shamir Purer, as saying, “The wave of new political and legal initiatives against Israel is unprecedented.” These initiatives include moves against Israel and its leaders in the United Nations Supreme Court and the International Criminal Court.

“I think there is definitely cause for concern,” Purer added. “Becoming a pariah state means that even if things don’t happen officially, fewer companies feel like they want to invest in Israel in the first place, and fewer universities want to cooperate with Israeli institutions.” .

The report continued: “Israelis find that they are no longer welcome at many European universities, including participating in scientific cooperation. “Their participation in cultural institutions and defense exhibitions has also become increasingly taboo.”

Post rejected

Lidor Madmoni, CEO of a small Israeli defense startup, has been preparing for months for an international arms fair in Paris in June. He said that the conference, called “Eurosatori,” would be a rare opportunity for his young employees to expand their business. Then he received an email informing him that due to a French court decision, his company was banned from attending.

“We have an obligation to prevent your access to the exhibition starting tomorrow,” organizers said on the eve of the event, citing court orders that came in the wake of a ban issued by the French Defense Ministry in response to Israeli military operations in Rafah, the Gaza city where more than a million people have taken refuge.

Nomi Aliel, managing director of Starburst Aerospace in Israel, an international consulting firm that develops and invests in aerospace and defense startups, said the French decisions “shocked the entire society.” Conference organizers said they had applied to overturn the court's decision and told Israeli companies in an email that they were doing everything they could to enable them to attend.

Boycott and Divestment MovementThe Wall Street Journal highlighted the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement,” which was founded in 2005 by Palestinian civil society organizations.

The movement has called for years to use international pressure on Israel to advance its goals, which include creating an independent Palestinian state and winning the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to live in Israel. But the movement found only limited momentum.

The newspaper continued: “The environment has changed after the outbreak of the war on Gaza.”

According to the newspaper, some long-standing goals of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and other pro-Palestinian organizations have been achieved as a result of the war.

“With the isolation of Israeli companies and institutions, Israel will find it more difficult to oppress Palestinians,” the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement says on its website. Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, declined to comment for this article.

When the war began, new boycotts began pouring in, especially from humanities and social sciences departments, says Nita Barak Koren, a law professor who headed an anti-boycott task force formed during the war at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The boycott began to expand about two months ago, and has spread to pure sciences and to the university level: “Movements at the university level and, most importantly, decisions to sever all ties with Israeli universities and Israeli academics,” she said, adding that more than 20 universities in Europe and Canada have adopted such a ban. .

An Israeli student who was preparing to study at the University of Helsinki said that she was already looking for housing in Finland, until the school informed her in May that it had suspended exchange agreements with Israeli universities.

Mina Kotaniemi, head of international exchange services at the University of Helsinki, said the university stopped sending its students to Israel after October 7 and decided to suspend exchanges in May to express its concern about the conflict. She added that the university does not intend to restrict the cooperation of its researchers with the Israelis.

The boycott is gaining increasing momentum in various academic fields. In May, the Journal of Cultural Criticism, published by the University of Minnesota Press, informed an Israeli sociologist that his article had been banned from publication because, they believed, it belonged to an Israeli institution.

Artistic cultural district

More than a thousand Scandinavian artists signed an unsuccessful petition to ban Israel from participating in the Eurovision Song Contest. Singer Eden Golan represented Israel at the finals in Sweden in May, where she placed fifth. One Norwegian jury member said he did not award Israel any points for its actions in Gaza, a violation of Eurovision Song Contest rules that prohibit judges from awarding points based on a performer's nationality.

Since the beginning of the war, a few dozen authors, most of them Americans, have refused to have their books translated into Hebrew and sold in Israel, says Efrat Lev, director of foreign rights at the Deborah Harris Agency in Israel, a literary agency.

One author who worked with the agency and wrote a book for young people focusing on gay acceptance declined to publish a second book in Israel, even though a contract had already been signed and the book translated into Hebrew, Lev said.

Source: Al-Ghad