“BDS and boycotts have changed Israel’s global trade landscape,” said Avi Balashnikov, Chairman of the Israel Export Institute. He added, “We fight every day, hour by hour, for Israeli industry abroad. Economic boycotts and BDS organizations present major challenges, and in some countries, we are forced to operate under the radar.”
Warning of Israel’s “downfall” and military “collapse” should the “war of attrition” continue, influential and once Netanyahu-confidant Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brik has recently said: “Israel's economy, international relations, and social cohesiveness are severely damaged by this war.” #ShutDownNation
Despite extensive propaganda attempts to cover up, Israel’s economy is already gradually “collapsing,” according to Eugene Kandel, former head of Israel’s National Economic Council at the PM's Office, and Ron Tzur, who was a senior government official. As things stand, Israel may not live to “celebrate its centennial,” they said, painting “a picture of total failure in the systems, management and operations of the [Israeli] administration … a collapse.”
Israel’s projected annual GDP growth rate for 2024 is 0%, according to leading credit rating agency S&P, which downgraded Israel’s rating with a negative outlook earlier this month. S&P has also sharply lowered Israel’s projected 2025 growth rate to 1.5%, mainly due to the substantial decline in exports over the last 3 consecutive quarters. #ShutDownNation
S&P further forecasts that the net flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Israel “would be minus 1.5%” of GDP in 2024, compared to 2.4% in 2022 and 1.3% in 2023.
On 27 September, Moody’s downgraded Israel's credit rating two notches and maintained a negative outlook, warning of a further drop to “junk” rating.
USS, Britain’s largest private-sector pension fund, has sold $100M of Israeli assets, including Israel Bonds, “joining a wave of global retirement funds” divestments. Pressure from the University and College Union (UCU) has played a major role in USS’s decision.
The Norwegian financial services company Storebrand has excluded IBM and CAF from its database over their complicity in Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, including the crime against humanity of apartheid.
Tech giant Oracle dropped plans to invest $250M in an AI data center in Israel earlier this month. The fact that Oracle’s leaders are fanatic right-wing Israeli and US Zionists who support Netanyahu and Israel’s genocide makes this decision particularly noteworthy.
Ideological motives behind investment in Israel’s high-tech are finally being acknowledged and successfully challenged. In December 2023, over two months into Israel’s #GazaGenocide, Intel’s Christian Zionist CEO announced plans for investing $25B in a factory miles away from Gaza. Following shareholders’ pressure, the plan was scrapped.
Israel’s genocidal war is also killing its tech sector. Israeli financial media report that“49% of Israeli tech companies reported investment cancelations due to the war.” High tech accounts for almost half of Israel’s exports in value.
Capital flight out of Israel is accelerating, as is the flight of senior academics, medical doctors, and tech executives, causing an unprecedented “brain drain.” In May, 130 Israeli economists, including the most prominent, warned that “Once the population bearing the [economic and security] burden concludes that the State of Israel has embarked on an irreversible course, the national collapse will come.”
Foreign fossil gas giants are also cutting back their Israeli business. Earlier in the year, BP, Socar, and other major gas companies withdrew from or postponed business plans. This month, Chevron, a priority target for the BDS movement, suspended its $429m planned expansion of the Leviathan gas field, citing the “security situation” in the region. All those companies remain deeply complicit and, therefore, subject to escalating BDS pressure.