A leading Israeli paper revealed on 10 July that 46,000 Israeli businesses have shut down since the start of Israel’s #GazaGenocide against 2.3 million Palestinians. This is the strongest indicator to date of the accelerating and “very serious” damage to the Israeli economy. #ShutDownNation
As things are going, Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid may not live to “celebrate its centennial,” according to a recent report by Eugene Kandel, former head of Israel’s National Economic Council at the PM's Office, and Ron Tzur, who was a senior government official. They paint “a picture of total failure in the systems, management, and operations of the [Israeli] administration … a collapse.”
They argue that the ultra-Orthodox community's demographics will determine the direction of a Torah-nationalist state, leading to the mass migration of Israel's “productive elite,” as in a “bank run.” The flight of 20,000 such minds would be enough for Israel to be left without high-tech, academia, and security, they predict.
Prominent Israeli economist Dan Ben-David says: “We won’t become a third-world country; we just won’t be anymore. Only 0.6% of the population are doctors, but who trains them? The senior staff in research universities makes up 0.1% of the population. High-tech workers are 6% of the population. Altogether, it’s 300,000 people. It’s enough that a critical mass of this group chooses not to be here tomorrow morning, and the State of Israel leaves the developed world.”
In June 2024, tech giant Intel froze construction of a $25B factory in Israel, dealing a “severe blow” to Israel’s “already damaged economy.” In 2022, Intel Israel’s exports constituted 1.75% of Israel’s entire GDP.
In February, the world’s largest sovereign fund, Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund, divested entirely (approx. $500M) from Israel Bonds. More recently, two of the largest US churches, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church USA, have also divested from Israel Bonds.
During Israel’s ongoing #GazaGenocide, more than 80% of Israeli start-ups have suffered damages, with over 50% of start-ups left with less than 6 months of cash. “Angel investors” dropped by 75% in 2023, and growth capital investing in Israeli companies was down 32% year-over-year in Q1 2024. #ShutDownNation
Norway’s largest pension company, KLP, has divested $69 million from Caterpillar due to its contributions to violations of Palestinian human rights in Gaza and the West Bank.
In April 2024, Samsung Next, the Korean tech giant's innovation arm, announced it would shut down its Tel Aviv operations, yet another telling sign of the dramatically declining investor confidence in the Israeli economy.
Cafe chain Pret a Manger has abandoned plans to open 40 Israeli branches following news of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK) preparing to launch an extensive boycott campaign against the company. Investing in apartheid in Israel has always been unethical and illegal. Now, it is also extremely reckless! #BDS really works.