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Israel: #ShutDownNation!

Thinking of investing in Israel? Here are 17 reasons why you should THINK AGAIN.

  1. Just as it was in apartheid South Africa, investing in Israel’s 74-year-old apartheid system against Palestinians is inherently unethical and risky. It also presents a serious legal liability to complicit corporations. #DivestFromApartheid.
     
  2. With the current government, the most far-right, racist, sexist, fundamentalist & homophobic in the state’s history, and its influential fascist component, trust in the Israeli economy is fading faster than expected.
     
  3. The unprecedented rise of authoritarianism threatens “social collapse,” warns the Israeli president, driving international and even Israeli investors to gradually lose faith in Israel’s increasingly volatile economy.
     
  4. The Bank of Israel governor warned that the planned radical weakening of the “justice” system may lead to lowering the country’s credit rating, scaring away foreign investment. An Israeli leader warned of “civil war.”
     
  5. 56 world-renowned economists, including 11 Nobel laureates, warned that Israel’s far-right PM’s plan to weaken Israel’s judicial “independence” is detrimental to “economic prosperity and growth.”
     
  6. Hundreds of top Israeli economists sounded the alarm saying, “The concentration of vast political power in the hands of the ruling group without strong checks and balances could cripple the country’s economy.”
     
  7. As fears of a “judicial coup” mount, high-tech companies have already withdrawn $780 million from Israel , and kept additional external revenues of $2.2 billion outside the country.
     
  8. Israeli Cybersecurity company Wiz decided last week to transfer its money from Israel to bank accounts around the world.
     
  9. The US-based Insight Partners fund, the largest investor in Israeli high-tech, condemned Israel’s judicial “reforms,” warning of negative consequences. Almost half the Israeli public supports these reforms, including a quarter of “secular” Israelis.
     
  10. Israeli start-up Papaya Global decided to “withdraw all of the company’s funds from Israel” saying, “there is no certainty that we can conduct international economic activity from Israel.
     
  11. The Disruptive and Disruptive AI venture capital funds, together managing $250 million, also decided to withdraw their funds from Israel.
     
  12. HSBC said undermining Israel’s Supreme Court “may impact the institutional framework, potentially leading to a deterioration in [Israel’s] investment environment and thus weighing on the currency.”
     
  13. Dozens of Israeli high-tech leaders said that “weakening the status of the courts,” as well as other planned radical legislation, would present a substantial existential threat [to] the glorious high-tech industry.”
     
  14. In an unprecedented move, at least 16 large high-tech Israeli companies joined the protest against Netanyahu’s “judicial reform” plan. Some 40% of Israeli exports come from the high-tech sector.
     
  15. A high tech company CEO said: “High-tech brings a lot of money [to Israel] ...  it will disappear in a second. [Israeli high-tech leaders] receive inquiries from American companies everyday; think how quickly they will get up and fly away.”
     
  16. Under pressure from a major US investor concerned about Israel’s investment risks, an Israeli company transferred abroad $170 million from its Israeli bank time-deposit account, paying the bank a large penalty for early withdrawal.
     
  17. Apartheid Israel, a self-declared “Start-UP Nation,” seems to be turning into a #ShutDownNation, gradually repelling investments and evoking memories of apartheid South Africa in the late 1980s. #DivestFromApartheid

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